A session for students and teachers at Sree Sarada Vidyalaya

Two separate sessions were organised for the students and teachers on “Culturally Appropriate Mental Health Literacies for Mental Health & Wellbeing” which was followed by the distribution of the handbook and brochure.

Students’ discussion was mainly facilitated by the short films and most of the discussion revolved around these themes. One of the students said, “that the viewpoint of society needs to change about mental health conditions”. Another student highlighted the importance of family time and how having open conversations with their parents can enhance their mental health. The student said that “conversation can help solve many problems one faces.” During the vote of thanks Dr Deepa Chandran, Principal of the school talked about resilience. In her vote of thanks, she said to her students “You must bring up yourself to be a strong individual, you should have in your character resilience, to come back to the position. There are challenges, there are things that will be challenging you always ……………. [to overcome this] always think you should be growing up with a strong personality, a positive personality, looking at solutions to a problem

During the discussion with the teachers’ many concerns about both them and their students’ mental health emerged.  A teacher said there was “a lack of awareness about mental health and people having mental health difficulties are reluctant to seek help and acknowledge that one has problems.” A male teacher said that “when men share their mental health concerns it may lead to problems within the family, and this is especially the case for married men.”  A teacher said that “mental health is the ability to think positively” while another teacher said, “its ability to behave and react according to the situation”. Alluding to the situation in Kerala a teacher said, “physical illness is acceptable but mental illness is considered stigma” staying on this topic she said, “when they find out a student has disability and tell this to their parents, 99 per cent don’t accept this and says their child has no disability …… they are unwilling to even go for assessment”.

Teachers also find it difficult to tell students what is right and wrong. A teacher asked “when she used to be a student parents and teachers gave them proper guidance on what right and wrong were and they used to discipline them when appropriate, this had made our generation mentally strong. But in today’s generation, the risk of having a mental illness is very high for both teachers and students. Moreover, teachers of the present generation have no right to say NO to their students when they see something wrong and is that a reason students these days have more mental health problems?” Adding on to this another teacher later said “the inability to say no to their students is the problem the teaching community face these days”
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