‘I
don’t know how to say No to people. There are situations when I am unable to do
things or sometimes I don’t want to do it but I fail to say No!’
With
our work on adolescents and young people of India, Sahas is constantly stepping
up in the programs that address the issues that are most important to them and
together we find out a way to share, listen and find solutions to resolve them.
Our interns have joined hands to
accelerate and enhance our reach to the young people living in the remote
corners of India so that they become part of this important discourse on
gender, mental health and challenging gender based violence. Our long term
Intern Shujat Ali from Kargil, Ladakh facilitated this year’s first
collaboration with IAOL – an educational group that helps and guide Ladakhi students preparing for
various competitive exams like JEE, NEET, etc and provides a platform for them to
meet with their peers who have already cracked these exams.
In
short span of time, Mona Yadav, PhD and a Psychologist prepared a session on
‘fostering positive mental health’ with an objective to provide them much
needed support and tools to cater to the stress and anxiety that comes with
appearing in these extremely competitive entrance exams. It was for the first
time, we hosted a session in the night so that more students can join in. The
session began at 9 pm with a warm welcome, brief introduction and ground rules
so that everyone gets space to listen, share and learn. The participants were
invited to close their eyes and engage in the mindful meditation followed by a
journaling practice where in they had to write about the moment in their
life or any day this year where they felt upset, sad, angry or didn’t know what
to do.
Some
of the coping mechanisms shared by the participants while dealing with
difficult moments included sleeping, praying, baking, trying to solve the
problem, sitting alone, co-curricular activities like hiking and trekking,
singing, dancing, staying calm, talking to a friend or family member, eating
favorite food, crying, writing, talking
to the mentor. The facilitator then
engaged on which of these are helpful and which are not. In the next part of
the session, the facilitator shared some of the tools that one can use while
going through hard times, these practices need to be done regularly. Some of
them are meditation, journaling, positive self talk, social media detox etc.
All these practices were contextualized like positive self talk-people are
already judging and pressuring you for good marks, if we also talk negatively
about ourselves then we will go downhill so it’s important to remind oneself
about their own positive values and qualities. Similarly, the whole stress and
anxiety is related to the results; while one decides, prepares or even while
giving exams we are thinking about results and we forget to live in the
present. If you live in present, prepare well, not compare with other and focus
on the process rather than the outcome life becomes easier and stress is
reduced automatically.
At
the end of the session, we also talked about mental check in and when to
consult psychologist or psychiatrist thereby engaging on debunking taboos
around mental health and mental illness. We also engaged on why people struggle
with saying NO and finding good in themselves. It was an enriching experience
for us as this was our first experience working with youth of Ladakh. Some of
the feedback shared by the participants –
‘It was my first time attending mental awareness
workshop. And as a student we have lots of mental stress due to our academic
studies. So after attending this session, I understood how I can deal with them
through different activities. I am very thankful to you guys.’
‘We can use breathing exercises to reduce our
stress and worries, breath in and out. It helped me a lot. I will be doing this
exercise regularly now.’
‘Overall was great, I learned some unknown facts
about Mental Health Awareness, and the parameters of mental health status.’
