Solidarity, Emotional Awareness, Social Justice and Compassion: Insights from The Red Door’s Community Mental Health Program in India
By Pranami Tamuli
The Red Door’s Mental Health & Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) interventions with young women and girls from structurally excluded communities in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh have been extremely edifying, offering critical insights into #WhatWENeed to build the psychosocial wellbeing and resilience of at-risk communities.
For the past two years, we have been engaged in training young leaders from the community in offering essential psychosocial support through community clubs which function as safe spaces of co-learning and peer support.
The young women of the community that we work with experience a perfect storm of distressing factors, with the age group of 15–29 years having the highest suicide rate among women in India.
The risk factors can be attributed to the structural violence they experience in their everyday lives in the form of patriarchal norms that dominate every aspect of their lives – from what they wear to who they meet. They are denied sexual freedom and have no autonomy regarding their choice of life partner. Since they belong to historically marginalized communities (Dalit and Adivasi), generational trauma is pervasive, compounded by continuous structural harm in the form of identity-based discrimination in the areas of education and employment. At home, they experience alcohol-fuelled domestic violence at the hands of their male family members.