Mental Health Awareness
Mental health is an integral part of an individual’s overall health and well-being. Good mental health allows people to cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively, and make meaningful contributions to their communities. A person’s mental health contributes to their emotional, psychological and social well-being which in turn effects how they think, feel and behave.
However, even in this day and age, there are still many taboos surrounding mental health that prevent people from seeking help or discussing their experiences. Some common mental health taboos include the belief that mental illness is a personal weakness or a character flaw. Many people opine that an individual should be able to simply “snap out” of such problems. These stigmas often discourage people from seeking treatment and can lead to feelings of shame, isolation, and hopelessness. In reality, mental health is as important as physical health. Look at it this way, if a person were diagnosed with a physical ailment like High Blood pressure or Diabetes – there is no stigma associated in talking about it or consulting a doctor. Sadly, mental health is not met with the same response.
The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the importance of mental health, as the stress and uncertainty associated with the virus have led to increased levels of anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns. The pandemic has also disrupted normal routines and social support systems, making it even more challenging for people to maintain their mental health. As a result, it has become increasingly important for people to prioritize their mental well-being and seek help when needed.
Learning Space Foundation aims to break the taboos and has been active in promoting mental health and addressing the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
OBJECTIVES
- Increasing social and psychological empowerment of adolescents
- Increasing social, economic, educational and psychological empowerment of women
Projects
Life skills and Self-leadership
These skills help adolescents navigate life successfully. We help adolescents and youth reach their full potential by teaching necessary life skills and self-leadership skills.
Gender Sensitization
We sensitize individuals towards existing gender inequalities with an aim to bring about attitudinal changes towards Gender
based violence.
A Rose that Grew from Concrete
Through this program, we provide a little encouragement to children who try to overcome hurdles and continue growing smarter and stronger.
Women Empowerment
We support girls & women with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence necessary to realize their full potential and participate fully in their lives.
Capacity Building on Mental Healthcare Act
We collaborated with Dr Anita Rego of Pearlss4Development and conducted a free 8-week nationwide capacity building program from 28 September 2020 to 16 November 2020 for various NGOs and social workers on Mental Healthcare Act to empower them to advocate for the needs of persons with mental health issues.
Gender Sensitization
For adolescents:
We strongly believe that creating equitable world starts with making the young adolescents understand the harmful gender norms and promoting and nurturing positive expressions of masculinity. So, we reach out to young adolescents before the gender norms are cemented in them. Our gender sensitization programs are designed to help them tackle harmful gender norms that contribute to many types of inequalities between girls and boys. We work to foster more equitable norms through reflection, dialogue and other activities. We create awareness on their rights, promote agency and encourage reflection and dialogue on the issues that most affect them.
For adults:
Gender stereotypes shape self-perception, attitudes to relationships and influence participation in the life’s choices. Home is the first place where children are socialized into gender norms, values and stereotypes. Home shapes how they should be treated, what opportunities they should receive or how they should behave according to dominant gender stereotypes in their society. Parents model their own beliefs about gender and pass on to their children. In a school environment, gender stereotypes can affect a young person’s classroom experience, academic performance, subject choice and well-being. So, it is very critical to sensitize adults. We at Learning Space, facilitate awareness programs and train the trainer programs for adults as well.
Here are a few programs we conducted:
- A 3-day training of trainers workshop for 50 participants from APSA and CAP Foundation.
- A one-day workshop on Gender Sensitization for 110 high school students of various government high schools as part of APSA Children Literacy Festival program.
- Gender sensitization for 120 girls of Government Girls High School, II Lancer,Golconda, 210 students of Government High School, Kothaguda, Hyderabad.
- Conducted Gender Sensitization Workshop for 50 students of Nallagutta [New] Government High School
- A one-day workshop on gender for 40 youth girls and boys on in collaboration with APSA.
A Rose that grew from concrete
Though the society has guidelines for what success looks like and comes from, there are people who prove it wrong by just simply learning to get through the hard times and getting past the hardships of where they come from. They never quit trying until they become what they want to. Through our ‘A Rose that grew from concrete’ program, we are trying to recognize and encourage those strong students, who are struggling to prove themselves against all odds. So far we felicitated
- 13 girls from 2 government schools in Oct 2019 as part of International Day of the Girl Child celebrations
- 55 girls and boys from 4 government schools in Nov 2019 during Children’s Day celebrations.
Women Empowerment
Empowerment enables women to realize their full identity and powers in all spheres of life. It is about their freedom of choice and action in all spheres – social, educational, economic, political and psychological. Though our country is making progress in a few other areas, the status of women still remains deplorable, oppressive and discriminatory. We at Learning Space Foundation trying our bit to support women in whichever way possible.
Social Empowerment
- As part of Sanghamitra training designed to uplift rural women and promote women empowerment by Rachakonda Security Councel (RKSC), we conducted an awareness session to 120 women volunteers from Bhongir, Ibrahimpatnam and Choutuppal on gender-based violence and child sexual abuse.
- Our founder Kaumudi Nagaraju being a Margadarshak and SAS program director Nalini Goteti being a Sanghamitra, both trained by Society for Cyberabad Security Council, are supporting and guiding women facing domestic violence.
- Founder of Learning Space Foundation is a mentor in GirlzFTW global community that aims to support and empower girls and women to question and dismantle harmful cultural norms through mentorship.
Economic Empowerment
- Financial Independence is a key factor for an Individual to sustain and grow in their lives. Learning Space Foundation supported skill development programmes initiated by Society for Rural Development Rainbow Home in Chudi Bazar Hyderabad in 2018. While SRD provided training in computer skills to 15 young women, our trainers conducted a series of sessions on setting goals, good communication, interview skills, and team work to help them fare better in the interviews as well as in their jobs.
- Provided a sewing machine to a single mother to support livelihood. She comes from a marginalized community and lost her husband in an accident.
- Our founder supported another NGO Prayaana as a mentor for their Comeback2Career programme which was designed to support women who are planning to restart their careers.
Educational Empowerment
- We support education of girls who are in need by paying their school/college fee and providing basic necessities such as notebooks. So far we supported 11 girls with their school and college fee.
- Covid pandemic pushed our education system go online which jeopardised education of many poor students. In our country where the gaps in access to education and the Internet were already vast, poor families are struggling to stay the course. Upon receiving request from RIGHTS, a Kerala based NGO that supports students with educational materials, we sponsored mobile phones to 2 Adivasi girls in Kerala, one girl from Thottekkadu Mattoor, Ernakulam, and another girl from Kokkallur PO, Calicut.
Psychological Empowerment
- Her Safe Space – This is a soft, compassionate, and supportive space of genuine connection and non-judgment for women. We made this as women-only space so that women get to express and explore themselves without the dominant lens of patriarchy. We hold this as a closed space on every Saturday with a limited number of women.
- We Hear You! – We along started this Instagram live series to focus on diverse topics related to teenagers. Each session is driven by the teenagers and all we provide is a judgement-free sharing space. We successfully conducted 8 sessions on various issues faced by teenagers. If you are teen and would like to talk to us, drop an email to info@learningspace.co.in
- We promote psychological wellbeing of women through various awareness sessions. So far we organized 6 sessions on topics such as emotional self-care, menstrual moods, mother’s mental health etc on different occasions.