Telangana: Girls Run Mental Health Awareness Programme For Govt School Kids, Orphans

Hyderabad-based teenage girls are successfully running an initiative 'Vishwasa' to bring mental health awareness and induce life skills among students of government schools and orphanages in the city.

'Vishwasa' was founded in 2019 by 16-year-old girls, Rhea Thakkal and Ankitha Reddy.

In a report by ANI, the teenagers said that they conducted 70 interviews in government schools and orphanages and understood that most students were in self-doubt about their goals.

"Ankitha wanted to work on mental health, while I was interested in developing skills, especially for underprivileged children. We realised that for both the issues school-going children are our target audience," Rhea informs ANI. She adds that their motive is to encourage them to dream. They conduct sessions on concentration, gender equality, body shaming, racism, and several other issues concerning the students.

Rhea also mentions that being teenagers themselves they were often not taken seriously. But with the support from family, friends, and others they were able to conduct sessions at government schools and orphanages. Then slowly the teachers and students understood the importance of mental health and life skills.

As the pandemic halted India, this pair sought other ways to continue their initiative.

Ankitha iterates how they changed their work model in the lockdown period. "We have set two main ways of conveying the message to the students: One, creating video modules and the other by creating impactful social media posts. As a part of the video modules, we are creating video content in both English as well as in Telugu about mental health, depressions, stigmas, and several other issues. Then these video clips are sent to various government schools and orphanages. We get feedback from the schools' faculties and suggestions on what other topics can be discussed," said Ankita to ANI.

The duo along with 40 young volunteers are distributing these videos to about 250 children in Hyderabad. Recently, they have also collaborated with Manojagriti, a team of psychologists. Apart from mental health awareness, this team raised ₹14.9 lakh to provide meals to approximately 60,000 to 70,000 migrants.

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