Hosted & Edited by Manasi Nene
According to the World Health Organisation, India is home to approximately 56 million people with depression, and a further 38 million more with anxiety disorders. Against such a context, access to affordable and quality mental health support becomes vital.
And this is especially problematic for rural India, where access to healthcare has historically been a challenge. But with mental health specifically, some solutions exist, where the community is at the centre of delivering mental health care. One such example is of Atmiyata, a project led by the Centre for Mental Health Law & Policy; this project is an evidence-based, community-led model that aims to “bridge the mental health care gap by using a psychosocial model delivered through community volunteers to identify and support persons with distress.”
Manasi Nene spoke with the team at Atmiyata—Kaustubh Joag, Jasmine Kalha (Co-Leads, Atmiyata), Sahdevsinh Parmar and Mitesh Prajapati (Community Facilitators) to understand more about this model and how it is delivered.
