The sixth phase is not a ceremony at the end
Five phases of this protocol exist to make the sixth possible. The sixth is that a man who has come through turns around and guides the men who arrived after him. That is the aim of the module and it is the moment a person becomes Jyotirgana. It is also, and this is the part nobody expects, already a funded category.
What is already there
Peer led work has its own line in the national scheme.
Community based Peer Led Intervention is one of the four things the National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction pays voluntary organisations to run, alongside residential centres, drop in centres and district de-addiction centres.
The campaign is already built out of volunteers.
Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan runs on youth clubs, Yuva Mandals, NYKS and NSS volunteers, and on Anganwadi and ASHA workers and women's self help groups. It has been in every district of the country since 15 August 2023. The structure to hold a peer is standing. What is handed to that peer is usually a pamphlet.
What is missing
A man who has come through is given a badge and a slogan. He is not given a practice he can lead, in order, with a beginning and an end, that does not require him to be a teacher of anything.
What to do first
Take two men, not twenty.
The ten minute practices are built to be led by somebody who has done them. One group, one pass, nothing repeated, ending on a hum. He does not have to explain any of it.
Lead from inside the line, not from the front.
He practises with them. The difference between a man leading and a man instructing is the difference between this working and this being one more person telling him what to do.
Say the true thing about yourself, once.
Not a testimony and not a triumph. That he is still here, and that today that is the whole of it. Every man in that line has been lied to by somebody who was cured.
What to write down
How many came back the second week. That single number is worth more than anything he could be asked to fill in.
Two men practising in a courtyard is where a village health centre can be shown something that already works. That is the next rung, and it is the one where the money is.
Where each of these comes from
- National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, in force from 1 April 2018. Grants to States and to voluntary organisations for Integrated Rehabilitation Centres for Addicts, Community based Peer Led Interventions, Outreach and Drop In Centres, and District De-Addiction Centres, which carry what the first three carry together. socialjustice.gov.in
- Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan, launched 15 August 2020 in 372 districts and extended to every district of the country on 15 August 2023. nmba.dosje.gov.in