This isn't small talk

Each chapter in Jugaad details how an adolescent navigates through mental health problems

When you mention the word ‘counsellor', people immediately think that you are mad," says a 19-year-old Sanket Gala, when asked how people in his age group perceive counselling for mental health. A student of Ramnarain Ruia College, Gala experiences muscular dystrophy. And if you head to Ummeed Child Development Centre's (CDC) office, you'll find a snippet of what mental health looks like to him and how he responds to it, in a new publication called Jugaad that's available for free. But it isn't just his story - Gala's account is accompanied by those of 13 others aged between 14 and 19.

Jugaad was conceptualised in June last year. Making things work or simply "jugaad" defines Mumbai in a way no other word does. But in the context of mental health, these 14 stories shed light on how adolescents navigate challenges. The stories in the book are curated by Yashna Vishwanathan, who works as a mental health worker with Ummeed CDC, and are illustrated by Ananya Broker Parekh. It all started with a little gathering where young people associated with the CDC, or their partners could come together and talk - the experiences of living with autism, bipolar disorder, cerebral palsy among other things.

The gathering in 2018 with Sanket Gala (bottom row, centre) and Yashna Vishwanathan (bottom row, first from right)

"We met for five days in June and conducted activities, had conversations around various aspects of mental health over the five days. For instance, one of the things we asked the young people what mental health looks like to them or meant to them. For some it meant feeling safe or validated from someone or being able to express [themselves] in ways they wanted. Post the gathering, we then transcribed the sessions, picked out verbatim and themes, and checked with them for whether we were under/over-interpreting. Ananya would sit throughout the sessions, observe the sessions and ask participants many little questions to know them and [understand] how they want to be illustrated. All of us sat together to look at how we want to conceptualise this book and what's it that we want to make visible through it," Vishwanathan says, pointing out that it was important to figure out how this can supplement existing literature on mental health, while Gala advocates for more talk in the classroom. "We have subjects like personality development but mental health isn't looked at in a broader sense, and certainly not at the level of primary education. It isn't given as much importance as physical health."

In January 2020, Ummeed will also organise a conference for narrative practitioners called Weaving our Voices. Talking about the team's biggest learnings, Vishwanathan says, "It was to be really mindful of our influence over the personal accounts and how checking, re-checking and reiterating our intentions helped us with that. Our intent was also to make it a collective document that was representative of many different voices rather than amplifying one voice over another because of our own biases or privileges. Through this process, narrative ideas and practices guided us as a team to keep holding on to the belief that people are experts to their lives."

At: Ummeed Child Development Center, 1-B,1/62, Mantri Pride Building, NM Joshi Marg, Lower Parel (to pick up a copy of Jugaad).
Log on to: @mentalhealthjugaad on Instagram (to order a copy)

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