Behind the work of social change is the dream of building a society in which marginalized people can become socio-economically strong and lead a better life. Education, health, nutrition, justice, equality and livelihood are prominent among these works. Samaan Society has been working in Indore on issues of justice, equality and livelihood for the past decade. It was during these works that the experience came to the fore that the mental health of the individual and the community is a major dimension of development and justice. There are many problems in the society. These include unemployment, gender-based violence, other external violence, tension in personal relationships, etc. All these problems affect the development and well-being of the individual and the community.
Because when we work for better life of human beings through community participation and empowerment, that work is incomplete, unless we connect it with work for their good mental condition and mental health. Because mentally healthy individuals are not only capable of leading a better life themselves, but also contribute significantly to the society.
Women from underprivileged sections of society are associated with all three programs of the same society – women’s access to justice, women drivers and women mechanics.
These women and their families suffer from many problems including lack of nutrition, education of health facilities for their children. At the same time, these communities are also facing the lack of livelihood. Due to these problems, they remain mentally disturbed. Sometimes their mental troubles turn into illness too.
Due to being mentally disturbed, they are not able to find solutions to their problems, due to which the problems increase and sometimes new problems are also added to them.
These mental problems hinder their development and despite the desire to join them, they are not able to connect with new means of employment.
• Due to being mentally disturbed or unwell, they are not able to take care of their nutrition, which also affects their physical health. It also affects the education, health and nutrition of their children.
Community mental program is being conducted by Samaan Society in two areas of Indore – one in Malwa Mill area and the other in Palda area.
This program has two major dimensions –
Such centers have been established in the name of Khushahali Kendra in Malwa Mill and Palda, where people of the community come and participate in various activities to get rid of their stress and loneliness. Various sports activities take place here. It is such a vibrant center where people share their point of view and try to find solutions to their problems and help each other in this. In this, people share the factors affecting stress and mental health, which gives them a way to get rid of stress.
Community mental health is affected by intensive interaction with the community and after continuous effort, they start seeing it in their lives and become conscious of better mental health.
Most of the people in the community live under mental stress, but they do not have any platform to share and overcome that tension. In this condition the tension increases and they start thinking of ending their life. Many people also try this and many people also start violence on other family members. But when we discussed with him and gave him an opportunity to share his plight, he started coming out of the tension.
Women are the most involved in our work so far. It has been observed that boys/men are hesitant to share their mental distress. Sometimes they don’t even share it with their friends. Here we also see the effect of the patriarchal system, in which boys or men feel that they will prove to be weak if they share their sufferings. But apart from the constant discussion, they changed and they were ready to share their trouble and take measures for it.
Stigma is prevalent in the society for mentally ill persons. But the people of the community also want the unhealthy person to be unwell. But they have no solution for that. When we talked to the community through this program on measures and established a continuous dialogue, people came forward to help the sick people and they also started misunderstood the stigma. This led to a positive change in their behaviour towards the unhealthy person. This change in the community had a positive effect on the sick person as well.
In the course of work, we have found that there is a special cycle of mental illness. It arises due to various problems and due to those also different problems arise. For example, in the case of unemployment, a person is under mental stress and due to this stress, he is not able to find employment and many times he loses employment opportunities. Thus a cycle of mental illness and its causes is created, which become causes for each other. Therefore, it is necessary to break this cycle through client work.