Being initiative’s new report titled ‘Mapping Youth Mental Health Landscapes: Local Insights from 13 Countries' highlights the top youth mental health needs in India.
On April 18, 2024, Being, an international youth mental health initiative hosted by Grand Challenges Canada (GCC), launched its new report titled ‘Mapping Youth Mental Health Landscapes: Local Insights from 13 Countries.’
The report is a culmination of detailed country-wide reviews on the key drivers and issues influencing the mental health and wellbeing of young people in Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, Romania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Vietnam.
In each of the priority countries, the initiative conducted a comprehensive year-long landscape analysis. This involved a series of collaborative activities including expert consultations, consensus-building workshops, and youth engagement initiatives.
Being India
As one of the 13 priority countries, India stands out as home to the world’s largest concentration of young people, with over 371.4 million young people aged 10-24 years – making up 26% of the total population.
To understand the landscape of youth mental health in India, we at the Centre for Mental Health Law & Policy, Indian Law Society, Pune, partnered with Sangath, Goa. Together, we adopted a multidisciplinary approach by engaging with diverse stakeholders such as state and district nodal authorities, funders, and representatives from civil society organisations and the private sector, through interviews and consensus-building workshops.
As youth involvement was the primary focus, we actively engaged with young people through our Youth Advisory Board and other activities like surveys and photovoice.
To know more about our approach and other details, visit our webpage: https://cmhlp.org/projects/being-india/
What we found
Through our discussions with various stakeholders, we identified a range of factors impacting the mental health and wellbeing of young people. These include gender norms, employment, financial security, career prospects, among others.
Interestingly, our stakeholders identified three primary factors that contribute to mental health challenges among young people in India:
a. perceptions of mental health,
b. family systems and pressure, and
c. academic pressure and competition
During our discussions, stakeholders proposed strategic opportunities to enhance support for young people. They recommended investing and strengthening existing networks, with a focus on empowering young people and integrating mental health support into existing initiatives.
To know more about our findings on the youth mental health ecosystem in India and other countries, download the full report, here.
More about Being
Being is an international effort to understand the mental health and wellbeing needs of young people in priority countries and identify strategic opportunities for intervention.
The initiative seeks to address the early drivers of young people’s mental health, with a strong focus on young people’s connections, environments, and socioeconomic systems.
In the long term, Being aims to utilise findings from this report to improve young people’s mental health and wellbeing through innovation, funding opportunities, and ecosystem building in 12 of the 13 priority countries.
To learn more about Being, visit: https://being-initiative.org/
Somya Agarwal is an Assistant Project Manager and Research Associate, Swagatika Mohapatra is a Research Associate, and Amiti Varma is a Program Manager and Research Fellow at the Centre for Mental Health Law & Policy, Indian Law Society, Pune.
