Samalochane (Mental Health)
The Challenge
Mental health is still not a very popular topic in india. Given the reservations against the many myths surrounding mental health, most people just choose to ignore it or brush it off as a normal part of growing up. Even those who recognise mental illness and want to seek help, find it difficult to do so given a serious shortage of mental health professionals in India. This is worse for adolescent children who, Indian’s believe, cannot have mental health issues simply because they are too young.This has led to a natural rise in cases of depression and suicidal tendencies among our youth who are too pressured by competition, performance stress, career and their future lives.
Our Intervention
We collaborate with various schools under the Archdiocesan Board of Education (ABE) for the detection, prevention and management of mental health issues and its causative factors.Under our flagship project Samalochane, supported by kindermissionswerk – Germany, we train psychologists in child and adolescent psychiatry in collaboration with reputed institutes such as NIMHANS, sampurna montford and st. John’s Hospital. We focus on enabling holistic development of children through personal development and ecosystem enablement. We normalize mental health and illness by opening a dialogue on mental health among school children, their parents and their teachers.
- Project Incharge: Jackson
- Email: jackson@bmsss.org