Snehi

NEW DELHI, Delhi, 110070 India

Mission Statement

Promoting Dignity, Wellbeing and Positive Mental Health. Healthy Minds. A Healthy India.

About This Cause

Since 1994, Snehi has been engaged in different projects to energise society, its institutions, and individuals and foster psychosocial well-being so that they remain happy, comfortable, focused, compassionate, and productive. While our target groups are children, adolescents, and young adults, we also support people of other age groups. Snehi primarily focuses on addressing the emotional and mental health needs of the community and its inhabitants by providing psychological counselling and support in times of crisis. The aim is to promote well-being by facilitating positive mental health and dignity, and preventing suicides and mental disorders. We work continuously to sensitize people on mental health issues so as to break stigmas surrounding mental health. As part of capacity strengthening work, we conduct orientation/training sessions with service providers in the field such as counsellors, para-counsellors, and community health workers. We also provide training on mental health to caregivers, parents, teachers, and corporate professionals. We at Snehi firmly believe that robust mental health is a pre-requisite to good physical and social health. Snehi was born out of the silent sufferings of students witnessed in JNU & IIT Delhi Campuses during 1987 to 1993 and the experiences of its Founder, who, as a member of various students’ communities, wanted to extend emotional support to the students who were experiencing any kind of emotional trauma. Snehi is the pioneer of Pre-exam Helpline and Pre & post Results Helpline in India. These telephonic helplines were started in 1997 and 1998 respectively. The aim was to support students (who are preparing for exams and waiting for results) during their most trying times and alleviate their stress, reduce anxiety, and lessen their sense of uncertainty so that they could calmly and systematically prepare for their exams and perform better in exams. The helplines provided a forum for students and their parents and guardians to call anytime of the day and seek counselling support anonymously (if they so desired) and free of cost. In this manner, the stigma related to seeking mental health was also taken care of. Many a times parents called to understand how they could help their children. With sustained advocacy over a period of time and by educating and sensitising the policy makers in the government, Snehi succeeded in getting pre-exam helplines started by CBSE and other State Examination Boards too. In the last 28 years (till March, 2023) following have been the key achievements of Snehi: 1. Reaching out to, and helping over 1,52,247 people in distress. Out of this number, about 1,15,398 were children, adolescents, and young adults; about 14,832 were parents. We helped them through our crisis intervention telephonic counselling, in-house counselling/therapy, and through various community mental health services/programmes. 2. Preventing 1968 persons from committing suicide. 3. Training 3,035 counsellors, para-counsellors, community mental health care givers, child development professionals, social workers and professionals working in corporates as part of capacity strengthening initiatives in mental health. 4. Conducting ‘life skills education’ sessions for approximately 4700 children, adolescents and young adults for their social and emotional skills development, stress management and to enhance their emotional intelligence. We have also been conducting these sessions for parents and teachers. As part of its community outreach initiatives in Mental Health Care, Snehi works/has worked since 1996 in different community set-ups. Our main programs are listed below: 1. Balbhawan Program: This is an ongoing program in partnership with Agnel Charities since 2001. Balbhawan is a long stay home for destitute children where we have worked to promote psychosocial well-being by providing counselling and positive mental health care services for more than 400 children (presently 250 are residing and 150 have left after becoming independent adults). 2. Snehi has worked with about 1500 children/adolescents and their families in urban villages of South Delhi, namely, Rangpuri, Mahipalpur, Hauzrani, Khidki, and Lado Sarai from 2008 to February 2014. We have also worked with children residing in nearby slums like Shankar Camp, Israil Camp, Nale wali Juggi, and Sapera Basti. 1. Snehi has worked in slums at Yamuna Pushta (embankments) on the west side of the river having about one lakh population which was spread from ITO Bridge to Salimgarh Fort/Loha ka Pool. We had set up a children and family counselling centre at Yamuna Pushta with the support of Delhi Police, who had provided us constructed space to run the centre. We worked there from 1996-2003, till such time that the slums were demolished to resettle the slum dwellers in Bawana, an outskirt of Delhi. We could work with about 4000 children, adolescent and young people and their families. 2. We worked with street and run-away children from 1996 to 2004 at New Delhi Railway Station in partnership with Karm Marg, an NGO. We had worked with about 300 children, adolescents and young people. 3. Snehi worked with the survivors of Bhuj Earthquake in 2001. Within a week of the earthquake, a team of 5 trained counsellors and a psychiatrist went to Bhuj and stayed with people experiencing overwhelming emotions and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for about two weeks. The first phase of this initiative was supported by IOCL (Pipeline Division) to provide psychosocial support and counselling to survivors. In second phase, which took place in the last week of February, we worked with people experiencing PTSD and grief. We selected 10 volunteers with a sensitive and helpful attitude to train them in basic counselling and listening skills to support the intervention in crisis & post trauma phases. They then worked as para-counsellors to provide psychological first-aid. They also identified people for referral. These volunteers were engaged in different professions and were working with different organisations. 4. Snehi was invited by Rajiv Gandhi Foundation in 2000 to participate in the Master Trainer training sessions to conduct training sessions in counselling and trauma care for the identified local Human Resources. Mr. Abdul Mabood was one of the Master Trainers trained for trauma care of people living in the conflict zones of J&K, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Manipur and other states in NE region. Snehi’s team then trained more than 150 teachers and health workers in Kupwara, Baramulla and other districts of J&K. This was to equip them be para-counsellors who could work with children who have undergone traumatic experiences and mental health issues by virtue of being born and brought up in the midst of the socio-political turmoil due to ongoing insurgency and terrorism in the state.

Snehi
B-347, Vasant Kunj Enclave
NEW DELHI, Delhi 110070
India
Phone +91-9810014992
Unique Identifier 5869958161689_ebaa