Transcript

A few facts. Number one, mental health is a single largest predictor of well-being. Second is that the rural and tribal areas of India. Face several health inequities, but possibly mental health is the starkest of them all. 3rd, What do we really know about mental health? There are two three things that we definitely know about mental health. Number one, that now we are seeing a very rising burden of mental health problems, be it urban or rural areas. Burden includes disorders like depression, anxiety, addictions, schizophrenia. 2nd is that the number of service care providers, which means either psychiatrist or psychologists, psychiatric nurses, these are very few. Especially in India and there. And the distribution is also very skewed. So for example, you would have hundreds of psychiatrists in an urban or metro area. But if we are talking about Garcia Roli, there is only one psychiatrist. In Gadchiroli, there are hardly any psychologists. So whatever mental health professionals we do have, the distribution is extremely skewed. And 3rd fact is that thankfully we live in an era. Bed very effective therapies for mental health exist. So it can be either you know, medicine therapies in in view of like giving medicines actually drugs or non medicinal therapies like counseling or group therapy, family therapies. So there is a huge burden. The number of mental healthcare professionals is skewed and 3rd effective therapies exist. So if this is the case, then what do we really do about? For places like Gadchiroli, which are very, very socioeconomically backward, which have a huge prevalence, which have a huge burden and where there are no facilities. So what the mental health program at SEARCH aims to do is to provide evidence based, high quality and affordable mental health care to all those who suffer from mental health issues. And for this we need your support because we believe here. That mental health care should not be a privilege for a few. Mental health care should be available to everyone, everywhere. If you want to know more about our work or even support our fundraising initiative, please click the link in our bio. And again, thank you very much.