Mumbai: Online support programme for senior citizens ends on a ton

File photo of a Dilasa session before the pandemic

Online Dilasa, the brainchild of counsellor and social worker Neelam Varadkar, 72, and a lifeline for many senior citizens during the lockdown, rang in its 100th and final session on Thursday. Dilasa, a branch of the Lokmanya Seva Sangh - a community centre in Vile Parle that caters to issues ranging from children's needs to senior citizens' problems, from library to gym - was started in 2010 for seniors struggling with loneliness. Every Thursday, from 4 pm to 6 pm, the Dilasa centre would conduct programmes for seniors at their community hall. These programmes covered entertainment, general knowledge, problems in society, and literature and also had special guests.

Neelam Varadkar, counsellor and social worker

However, this came to a halt during the pandemic. "I saw how this was affecting the seniors mentally and decided to conduct these meetings online," says Varadkar. The sessions saw around 70 attendees. Varadkar said the meetings were a relief for a lot of the members who lived alone and were bereft of even the occasional visits from their families in view of the restrictions. "During Covid, all you could hear were ambulance sirens and news on Covid and deaths. Every family had deaths and all of these had an impact on their mental health. So I took them for counselling, too," adds Varadkar. Attendees ranged from a 93-year-old woman who is the eldest in the group, to a cancer patient who would attend the meetings right after chemotherapy.

However, the biggest challenge before Varadkar was teaching seniors how to join the meetings on their smartphones. Anjali Sawant, who has been an active member of these sessions, both offline and online, said, "I didn't know how to use it but she [Varadkar] taught me how to mute, unmute, send pictures on WhatsApp, type and even use the voice feature." Over time these online sessions saw more and more seniors attending - from 20 at the start to 67 attending the final meeting. The grand finale, which was also an award ceremony, was mainly nostalgic. But, this is not the end as the sessions will get back to their two-hour-long offline format from next Thursday.

67
No. of attendees at the last meeting