Author C.Chandramouli, Founder, TakeHelp Life Counselling Solutions
Today, the 10th of October, is observed as “World Mental Health Day” across the world. Let us briefly explore the Mental-Health state of the urban poor of India today.
In the month of February 2019, we did a program called “Success Without Stress” in six corporation schools at Chennai. The program was conducted by our psychologists and aimed at Students appearing for public exams (10th & 12th). We had essentially done this program to help students face the public exams without stress. These programs enabled us to see many facets of a section of society less observed by me personally. First the positives: We were pleasantly surprised by the facilities available in Corporation Schools. Many had a smart class-room, some had decent auditoriums with proper equipment, huge play-ground, in a few schools we found schools children speaking in pristine English, and above all we could see teachers & principals who really cared for the children and their future. The corporation officials itself, who are in-charge of education, were quite caring and forth-coming: almost an anti-thesis of what atleast I had been imagining. These positives are, perhaps, thanks to increasing awareness, better government allocation of resources, also the work of several NGOs and the care of the people associated themselves (be it corporation officials or teachers/principals themselves).
Having said this, there is a glaring issue that also came up to our notice: That is the abysmal socio-economic background that many students studying in these schools come from. Some stories of certain students’ families were just too much for even hearing! It was un-imaginable that at such a tender age they have gone through so much! Iam omitting mentioning of those stories so as to preserve the dignity of those un-known tiny faces! Nevertheless, this led me to do my own little research into the plight of the urban poor in India. The findings were quite startling. One major revelation was that the tumultuous situations faced by this category due to multiple issues also makes them prone to several mental issues.
A study by NIMHANs puts the urban poor in the most vulnerable category for mental illness. The study further says that 9.8 Mn children in the age group of 13yrs to 17yrs need active professional intervention. Also, prevalence of mental dis-order is twice as much in Urban Poor Children (13.5%) as compared to that of rural children (6.9%). The reasons are quite straight-forward: Among rural poor the family system is still strong and that acts as a possible guard against mental illness. The family system among the urban poor, in comparison, is more fragile. Also, the urban poor lives largely in slums, some of which have concentrated presence of anti-social elements and high incidence of substance abuse. In many cases people affected by substance-abuse could even be family members or parent of the child. Not just children, women in the age group of 40-49 years in the urban poor category are also quite prone to mental illnesses due to several socio-economic issues. This in-turn may affect children being parented by those afflicted.
Over 30% of India’s population is living in Urban centers. And, this is only increasing every year. A substantial percentage of this population is the urban-poor. This should have by now set the arm bells clanging!!
This situation needs to be addressed by everyone who can : Be it the governments or even Corporates, who can make a difference by investing their CSR funds towards this cause.
So, what can be done: Early intervention starting from Primary school itself to identify learning difficulties, sensitize & increase awareness of various issues to pre-adolescent and adolescent children (for example on substance abuse, gender sensitivities, how to guard one-self against sexual-abuse etc). The children should also be supported on Career Guidance, soft-skills, post-exam vocational skilling and even job identification. All this is over & above actual counselling intervention for those with specific issues like depression or stress or trauma etc. The urban poor women should also be helped with counselling (for those who face issues) and also should be provided vocational training to create dignified-earning opportunities.
TakeHelp has several intervention measures aimed at addressing below-poverty line students. We can intervene not only for mental health, but also for skill development among the poorest of poor. Both women & children among the urban poor can be helped. CSR support from corporates will help in making this happen.
Writer is the Founder of “TakeHelp Life Counselling Solutions”. They provide psychological counselling services on their portal www.takehelp.in. They also provide Wellness-services to schools, colleges & Corporates. Email your views to mouli@takehelp.in