Voices

Creating innovative programs to strengthen the MH ecosystem

Through the year, we launched initiatives targeting specific groups such as youth, entrepreneurs, development professionals and nd undertook strategic litigation under the Mental Healthcare Act and the Rights of Persons With Disabilities Act so that the state and central governments can be made accountable for the implementation of both the Acts.

Youth Care Network

In partnership with iCall and The YP Foundation (The Youth Parliament Foundation), we launched a leadership program to train youth leaders, working across various themes such as Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights and Education. These leaders would in turn, be able to provide peer counselling services and referrals for mental health services in their community and sphere of work. The program has trained 35 youth leaders in four months in topics such as gender, sexuality, power, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and providing psycho-social first aid to peers.

Mental Health of Entrepreneurs

We collaborated with ASCENT, a peer-to-peer platform for entrepreneurs to study the mental health experiences of growth-ready Indian entrepreneurs. We released a quantitative report on the study in November 2019 and published a report ‘Business as Identity’ report in September 2020. This report is a guide for mental health practitioners and the mental health sector at large on entrepreneurial mental health. 

 The primary finding that emerged from the study was that entrepreneurs have a persistent fear of failure. This is particularly true with the dominant discourse of entrepreneurs as ‘risk takers’, ‘innovators’ and ‘leaders’. This kind of discourse tends to link business failure to individual failure and leaves no room to discuss vulnerabilities and failures honestly. 

Strategic Litigation

We have initiated strategic litigation work on the Mental Healthcare Act and Rights of Persons With Disability Act, working with Advocate Gaurav Bansal.