Strengthening mental health support and securing rights for prisoners and their families.

Strengthening community based psychosocial interventions to provide care for persons with mental illness and substance use in West Singhbhum.

Providing psychosocial support and mental health awareness to victims of violence and abuse.

Creating Sustainable Support Communities for parents of children with developmental disabilities.

LAW Foundation is an NGO in Patna which facilitates access to socio-legal rights of custodial populations belonging to marginalised sections of society. Their thrust is primarily in the areas of legal aid services, networking, researching and documentation, and advocacy of custodial, institutional, legal, constitutional, and fundamental rights of under-trials. LAW Foundation also focuses on the rehabilitation and reintegration of undertrial prisoners from marginalised backgrounds.

Ekjut is implementing a comprehensive community-led intervention in West Singhbhum district that will address stressors including postpartum depression, poor nutritional indicators, GBV, and sorcery accusations as well as addressing common mental health problems and substance use. They are MHI’s first partner in Jharkhand and one of the few who work closely with the Indigenous Ho tribes.

Led entirely by women from Dalit and OBC communities, SSK is a feminist organisation that works with adolescent girls and women on literacy and education with a rights-based approach. They create awareness about gender issues related to caste, patriarchy, early/child marriage, violence against women, right to work, and food security in 5 blocks across 250 villages. They also work on legal guidance for survivors of domestic violence/ GBV/rape; provide livelihood support and crisis intervention; and help build access to government schemes/acts. MHI is currently supporting SSK for a year-long programme on incorporating psychosocial support and legal guidance within their existing interventions as well as on promoting awareness to improve help-seeking behaviour for mental health in the communities they work with.

Nayi Disha provides resources and mental health support to caregivers of children affected by intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). It is a community-led initiative that was started by caregivers of children/family members with intellectual disabilities. They support similar caregivers by disseminating information, forming peer support groups, and enabling access to appropriate resources and a network of experts in multiple languages. Recognising the dearth of mental health support for mothers of children with developmental disabilities in tier 2 cities, Nayi Disha has partnered with MHI to create sustainable communities in Lucknow and Indore by providing them with adequate assistance pertaining to their child, counselling, guidance, and peer community for their own mental health and emotional needs.

Addressing mental health impacts and experiences of persons with disabilities.

Facilitating access to palliative care for marginalized communities in Nandurbar.

Providing medical assistance, livelihood support, legal aid, and counselling to acid attack survivors.

Creating early educational content for young deaf children.

Rising Flame is a national award-winning self-led organisation working for the recognition, protection, and promotion of human rights of people with disabilities, particularly women and youth, since 2017. MHI partners with Rising Flame on projects that aim to deepen and build a nuanced understanding of mental health practitioners on mental health of disabled people and spotlight how persistent ableism and discrimination in society has adverse impacts on disabled people. Through developing resources that treat disabled people as experts of their lives, Rising Flame aims to reduce the existing gaps in the understanding around ableism and mental health of all disabled people.

KeSVF aims to design and implement interventions that address the inequality in the public health system, specifically in the neglected sectors of palliative and geriatric care. MHI is currently supporting KeSVF to implement a project that intends to facilitate access to palliative care for marginalised communities in Nandurbar district. This project aims to capacitate communities and healthcare providers to respond to distress arising within families on account of serious health suffering and to build an interlinked model of healthcare, including home-based palliative care, that engages with families, communities, and civil society groups as well as public, private, and traditional systems of medicine and health.

A community-led organisation founded by an acid attack survivor, BSF has been working for the rehabilitation of acid attack survivors for a decade now. The organisation recognises the deep psychological trauma endured by victims as well as the disabilities they must live with. Therefore, they believe that in order to reintegrate survivors into mainstream society, medical treatment alone is insufficient. In collaboration with MHI, they will extend their work to survivors of acid attacks from Punjab and Haryana. Their efforts will encompass providing medical assistance, livelihood support, legal aid, and counselling to survivors from these states, to ensure they get access to justice and fair compensation.

SHF works to promote deaf or hard-of-hearing people’s education, accessibility, awareness, and empowerment. Their holistic and long-term interventions in these fields seek to tackle ingrained development issues and empower the deaf community. MHI and SHF have been partnering for the project ‘Education and Awareness for the Deaf Community’ since May 2023. SHF will be creating 10 stories of 5 minutes each in Indian Sign Language for children under the age of 5. These stories will be accessible to both deaf and hearing children and will be posted on the YouTube channel ISH Kids.

Addressing stressors faced by the youth towards suicide prevention through psychosocial interventions in Puducherry.

TYCL is a community-based youth-led organisation that was founded by three college students in 2009. It focuses on addressing issues such as limited access to quality education, lack of job opportunities, and the need for career guidance, all through a mental health perspective. TYCL and MHI have partnered to provide support for mental health interventions and suicide prevention work in Puducherry. The project includes a mobile mental health clinic, a youth helpline, and a youth mental health training programme.