March 1st (by Robin Jacoby)

I have had the great privilege of being associated with GIP for about 15 years and of being its chairman for ten years. In March 2010 I hand over the chairmanship of GIP to Dr Benedetto Saraceno, who has just retired as head of psychiatry at the World Health Organisation.  So it is time for a little reflection.

When I took over the chairmanship from Jim Birley, GIP was focused exclusively on countries of the former Soviet Bloc.  It was a period of great hope following the mostly peaceful collapse of communism.  We had made a policy decision to do our criticism largely in private, and to devote our efforts to helping reformers in those countries to improve services for their patients.  We also published western psychiatric literature in Russian at our publishing house, Sphera, in Kiev, and distributed it free of charge.  We had projects almost all over the former USSR, including Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Baltic states, Ukraine and Siberia.

Our financial situation was always precarious, but that is the nature of charities.  Through the amazing efforts of Robert Van Voren we managed not only to survive but also to grow and turn over several million dollars a year.  There is no doubt that we had many successes and did, I hope, help to improve the lives of many people with mental disorders.  Perhaps we even managed to change the attitude of some of those in power both in governments and the psychiatric services.  However, we also had many failures, especially in Russia, where the Soviet mentality and a long, historical instinct for authoritarianism remain impenetrable obstacles to change.  The last few years of Putin's rule have simply hardened these attitudes.

Thus, we have decided to change our focus. The former Soviet countries will continue to be served by GIP, mostly through the regional offices in Vilnius, Sofia and Tbilisi.  In the Hilversum office we are concentrating much more on Africa and Asia with projects well under way there, and hopes of increasing our activities to a very great extent.  So who better to take the helm than Benedetto Saraceno?  He has a wide experience of dealing with the problems of services for the mentally ill in all continents.  I have no doubt that GIP will go from strength to strength under his leadership, and I wish him all the good fortune in the world.
Robin Jacoby

The end of Robin Jacoby's tenure as Chairman of the board of GIP fills us with gratitude, sadness and also surprise. Gratitude, because of the enormous amount of time and effort Robin Jacoby put in the growth of our organization. When he became chairman, GIP was limited to one office in Hilversum working with dozens of partners in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Now, when he retires as chairman, we are an international federation of five GIP foundations, each of them legally and financially independent, working in 38 countries and on virtually all continents. Sadness, because working with Robin Jacoby was a lot of fun, and during many joint trips we enjoyed philosophizing about the wonders of the post-Soviet world, the logics of absence of any logics in the former USSR and the enormous changes that we saw developing in front of our eyes yet at the same time leaving much of the old intact. And surprise, because only when looking back one can see how far we have come, how much has changed and how much has been accomplished. But also we see how much still needs to be done, how long the road ahead of us really is.

On behalf of all at GIP I take this opportunity to thank Robin Jacoby for all he has done for the organization, and for the development of a humane and ethical mental health care as a whole, both in our original region - Central & Eastern Europe and the former USSR – as elsewhere in the world. We are lucky he stays with us for several more years as Past President and is willing to continue to share with us his knowledge and experience. And we look forward to working with our new Chairman Benedetto Saraceno in continuing the work and meet the many challenges ahead. There is still very much to be done.  
Robert van Voren, Chief Executive