Hope Through Action Festival
Hope Through Action is a two-day virtual festival being hosted by Sangath’s It’s Ok To Talk youth mental health programme to celebrate personal stories of mental health. The festival is being hosted on September 10th and 11th to mark World Suicide Prevention Day 2021, the theme of which is creating hope through action. This year’s message is one of hope; that aims to empower people with confidence to engage with this complex subject and to bring people to work together, to create a movement of preventative action, with sustained messaging to drive behaviour change and ultimately, prevent more suicides.

We will be highlighting personal stories of young people’s mental health developed through our Mann Mela (www.mannmela.in) web museum and inviting young people and artists from across the country to join us in imagining futures in which young people everywhere are able to find support when they need it without shame or stigma.
Programme of Events
The festival features a two-day long virtual art exhibition featuring specially commissioned works by young people with lived experience from across India, skill-building workshops, panel discussion and plenary talks by young people and experts. All activities will be hosted on Zoom and livecast on Facebook/YouTube
Sep 10 (Fri)
Sep 11 (Sat)
Register here for Day-1
Watch on -
Register here for Day-2
Watch on -
Time
Event Description
Event Type
10.30 AM
Welcome Address
Talk
11.00 AM
Virtual art exhibit open
Exhibit
12.00 - 1.00 PM
Why I shared my mental health story
Sadam, Tarini, Sam, Monica
Talk
2.00 - 3.00 PM
Mental health, gender and sexuality: What's the connection?
Pooja Nair
Workshop
3.00 - 4.00 PM
Virtual art exhibit open
Exhibit
4.00 - 5.00 PM
How to create a suicide safety plan, for myself or someone I know
Sachi Mulki
Workshop
6.00 - 7.00 PM
For creators & artists: HCD & storytelling
Avinash Kumar
Workshop
7.00 - 7.30 PM
Building a little mindfulness into your day: 30 minute online guided mindfulness activity
Dr Eleanor Hodgson
Guided Relaxation
7.30 - 8.00 PM
Plenary: Vikram Patel
Vikram Patel
Plenary
11.00 AM Onwards
Virtual art exhibit open
Exhibit
12.00 - 1.00 PM
Why I shared my mental health story
Namarita Kathait, Pavel, Vidushi Karnatic
Talk
2.30 - 3.00 PM
Paint your blues with the help of expressive arts!
Rennet Attri, Tanvi Patil
Workshop
3.00 - 4.00 PM
Run your own listening circle
Miriam Sequiera
Workshop
4.30 - 5.30 PM
My mental health, my rights! But what are they?
Arjun Kapoor
Workshop
5.30 - 6.00 PM
Building a little mindfulness into your day: 30 minute online guided mindfulness activity
Dr Eleanor Hodgson
Guided Relaxation
6.00 - 6.30 PM
Plenary : Soumitra Pathare
Dr Soumitra Pathare
Plenary
Monica
Monica
Monica Mamidi is 28 years old and lives in Hyderabad. She loves films, books, music, traveling, eating anything chocolate, dancing, poetry and writing. Although from an engineering background, Monica is also interested in psychology. She believes education for children and young people shouldn't force them to excel at any cost, instead they should be supported to find their way to things they are passionate about. She wishes for a society that thrives on healthy interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships, and for a world that is more empathetic and kind because we all struggle at some point in our lives.
✖
Monica
Tanvi Patil
Tanvi Patil
Expressive Arts Practitioners, Youth for Mental Health
Tanvi (she/they) is an Expressive Arts Therapy (ExAT) Practitioner based in Mumbai. Her practice is client-centered, trauma and intersectionality informed, and she holds an anti-oppressive and queer-affirming therapy space; all of you is welcome. She is working with the intent of increasing accessibility to ethical mental health resources and conversations in India, and using the Arts for the same. She additionally holds the roles of Co-Lead for Youth for Expressive Arts, and Teaching Assistant for the P.G. Diploma in ExAT at St. Xavier’s College, Autonomous in Mumbai.
✖
Tanvi Patil
Rennet Attri
Rennet Attri
Expressive Arts Practitioners, Youth for Mental Health
Rennet (She/Her) practices Expressive Arts Therapy. She subscribes to an eclectic approach; her practice is trauma informed, anti-casteist, feminist, intersectionality informed and queer friendly. She is the head of Youth for Expressive Arts, an initiative by Youth for Mental Health and is a member of the World Federation of Mental Health. Rennet is actively working with individuals, organisations and communities to support and facilitate mental health at various levels in the society. She believes in mental health for all and the power of arts to attain the same.
✖
Rennet Attri
Pavel
Pavel
Pavel writes and conducts training on sexuality and gender, LGBTQIA+, and co-founded the Chinky Homo project that aims to compile an anthology of lived realities of queer person from North East India. Pavel studied at MSU Baroda and Hyderabad Central University pursuing applied linguistic and translation studies, and gender studies at Ambedkar University, Delhi. Through their work, they try to understand themselves and the community they belong to better.
✖
Pavel
Dr Soumitra Pathare
Dr Soumitra Pathare
Soumitra is the Director of Centre for Mental Health Law and Policy at Indian Law Society (ILS). He has contributed to the WHO Mental Health Policy and Service Guidance Package. He has worked as a consultant in various countries like Seychelles, Eritrea, Indonesia, Lesotho, Samoa and Vanuatu assisting them in developing mental health policy and drafting and implementing mental health legislation. He contributed to drafting India’s new mental health law and was a member of the Policy Group appointed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, to draft a new national mental health policy for India.
✖
Dr Soumitra Pathare
Arjun Kapoor
Arjun Kapoor
Programme Manager, Centre for Mental Health Law & Policy
Arjun is Programme Manager & Research Fellow at the Centre for Mental Health Law & Policy, Indian Law Society, Pune. Previously, Arjun was appointed as law clerk to the Supreme Court of India and has also worked on developing socio-legal interventions on access to justice with communities in Gujarat. Currently, at the Centre he leads various projects on law, policy, and service reform for mental health and suicide prevention. He works with a range of stakeholders for implementation of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 & the National Mental Health Policy, 2014. He also co-leads the India Mental Health Observatory and Outlive! - a youth suicide prevention program for preventing urban youth suicides in India.
✖
Arjun Kapoor
Miriam Sequiera
Miriam Sequiera
Psychologist, Sangath
Miriam is a psychologist and trainer at Sangath, Goa. She leads teams to develop contextually relevant psychosocial interventions that can be delivered by non-specialist health workers in the community. She has led intervention development teams for research projects funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (USA) and the Medical Research Council (UK) among others. Her areas of interest are adult mental health and addictions research.
✖
Miriam Sequiera
Rennet Attri and Tanvi Patil
Rennet Attri and Tanvi Patil
Expressive Arts Practitioners, Youth for Mental Health
Rennet Attri (She/Her) practices Expressive Arts Therapy. She subscribes to an eclectic approach; her practice is trauma informed, anti-casteist, feminist, intersectionality informed and queer friendly. She is the head of Youth for Expressive Arts, an initiative by Youth for Mental Health and is a member of the World Federation of Mental Health. Rennet is actively working with individuals, organisations and communities to support and facilitate mental health at various levels in the society. She believes in mental health for all and the power of arts to attain the same.
✖
Rennet Attri and Tanvi Patil
Vidushi Karnatic
Vidushi Karnatic
Vidushi is a cybersecurity expert from Haldwani, Uttarakhand. She is a motivational speaker and leads a small group called Enlightening Hope Within to create awareness about mental health.
✖
Vidushi Karnatic
Namarita Kathait
Namarita Kathait
Namarita is a professional editor and works in publishing. She loves to read and write. She completed a Masters in creative writing at the University of Westminster, London and Bachelors in English at Delhi University.
✖
Namarita Kathait
Vikram Patel
Vikram Patel
Vikram Patel is the Pershing Square Professor of Global Health and Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. His work has focused on the burden of mental health problems, their association with social disadvantage, and the use of community resources for their prevention and treatment. He is a co-founder of the Movement for Global Mental Health, the Centre for Global Mental Health (at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine), the Mental Health Innovations Network, and Sangath, an Indian NGO which won the WHO Public Health Champion of India prize. He is a Fellow of the UK's Academy of Medical Sciences and has served on the Committee which drafted India’s first National Mental Health Policy and the WHO High Level Independent Commission for NCDs. He has been awarded the Chalmers Medal, the Sarnat Prize, the Pardes Humanitarian Prize, an Honorary OBE and the John Dirk Canada Gairdner Award in Global Health. He was listed in TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential persons of the year in 2015.
✖
Vikram Patel
Dr Eleanor Hodgson
Dr Eleanor Hodgson
Clinical Psychologist
Eleanor is a clinical psychologist with 8 years’ experience of working in mental health services in the UK. She specialises in mental health difficulties which arise from abuse and trauma; particularly those experienced by women and by refugees. She has expertise in the mental health needs of excluded and marginalised groups, such as adolescents in gangs and ethnic minorities. She is passionate about working alongside communities in order to work towards better health, happiness and social justice.
✖
Dr Eleanor Hodgson
Avinash Kumar
Avinash Kumar
Founding Partner and Creative Director, Quicksand
Avinash has a background in product and game design, and leads the public engagement and new media practice at Quicksand. In recent years, he has anchored projects focused on public engagement, design research, mental health and solutions for public health. He has been the lead strategist and researcher on Quicksand’s work in the domain of mental health with Wellcome Trust , Comic Relief, CMHLP, and Sangath.
✖
Avinash Kumar
Sachi Mulki
Sachi Mulki
Training Manager, Sisters Living Works
Sachi is a psychologist by training, and has completed her M.Sc Clinical Psychology from Manipal Academy of Higher Education. At Sisters Living Works, she facilitates suicide prevention workshops that aim to raise awareness, and equip participants to serve as a first responder to someone in a suicide crisis. She also facilitates the support groups conducted by SLW for mental health and survivors of suicide loss.
✖
Sachi Mulki
Pooja Nair
Pooja Nair
Consultant, Mariwala Health Initiative
Pooja (ciswoman, pronoun: she) has been part of the non-profit sector for over a decade. She has worked variously as a researcher, documentation consultant, trainer and now as an independent therapist. She has an Mphil from Tata Institute of Social Sciences and has worked in the areas of life skills, gender, sexuality, violence and child sexual abuse. She has also worked with adolescents on life skills development. She's currently working on her PhD, and is a Consultant Therapist and Faculty at Mariwala Health Initiative’s (MHI) Queer Affirmative Counselling Practice Certificate Course (QACP).
✖
Pooja Nair
Sam
Sam
Sam is studying for a Masters in Applied Psychology. She is also an Arts Based Therapy Practitioner and conducts affordable individual and group sessions because she wants mental health services to be accessible to as many people as possible. Her personal motto in life is to help people help themselves.
✖
Sam
Tarini
Tarini
Tarini is a 28 year old finance executive. She was diagnosed with having Borderline Personality Disorder and since then she has been an active part of the mental health community - helping break the stigma around mental health with her story.
✖
Tarini
Sadam
Sadam
Sadam is the founder of Ya All Northeast, India's first registered queer and youth led-focused organisation based in Imphal and the Managing Director & Editor of Paomi Post, a digital storytelling platform for Manipuris. Sadam was acknowledged by Dettol among 100 Protectors recently and his story has been documented by Apple TV in a docu-series called The Me You Can't See co-produced by Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry.
✖
Sadam
Art Exhibition
A Work In Progress
Simran Srivastava
The Endless Loop
Simran Kaur
You-niverse
Tena Paul
Elpis In Us
Sanjana Singh
P(l)ain(t) Re-flextion
Ria (Rumi) Sharma
हे समाज तरेी नजर
Rashi Salaria
खुदको निकाल खौफ से, हौसला खुदका बढ़ा।
Pranita Meshram
Borderfine
Monjira Sen
More Than My Trauma
Meghana
Balance In An Unbalnaced World
Lakshmi Ramesh
Deluge
Lakeisha
What doesn't break you makes you stronger
Isha Aggarwal
Revival
Ehtishan Ali
What These Hands Told Me
Abhirami Suresh
Sanctuary
Vaibhavi Garge
Producer
Faith Gonsalves
Music & audio production
Ishaan Gandhi
Podcast research team
Faith Gonsalves
Pattie Gonsalves
Sweta Pal
Arunima Gururani
Artwork
Natasha Yadav
Special thanks
40 youth participants
Prof. Vikram Patel
Ritika Gupta
Anupma Dhar
Get Help Now
We all experience low points at different times in our lives and it’s not unusual to feel sad, anxious or stressed especially amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Sangath’s tele-counselling services offer free phone-based counselling for frontline workers and young people in need of psychological support.
CALL
011-41198666
Everyday | 10 AM - 4 pm
An initiative by
Creative Partner
Supported by
It’s Ok To Talk is a public engagement program set up in 2016 that works through new media and the arts, community-based events, training and leadership building and social media campaigns to highlight young people’s lived experiences of mental health needs, and build their capacities to address mental health challenges.
Contact Us
Sangath, E-5, Lane 1,
Western Marg, Saiyad ul ajaib,
Saket 110030, New Delhi, India
info@itsoktotalk.in




Subscribe to our Newsletter
Email Address
First Name
Last Name
Thank you for Subscribing
to our Newsletter!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form!
Privacy Policy
For more options to seek support and for a range of mental health services, visit, Find Help.

All the information on this website is published in good faith and for general information purpose only. The opinions, beliefs and views expressed by the various storytellers on our website are personal to the storytellers and do not necessarily represent those of Mann Mela, It’s Ok To Talk and Sangath or official policies of Sangath. Any content provided by our storytellers are their own opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, community, company or individual.

This website includes stories and descriptions of mental health challenges including depression, anxiety and suicide. Therefore, some contents may be upsetting or trigger an adverse reaction. Reader discretion is advised..
En
Hi
Home
Museum
Resources
Podcast
NEW
Hope Through
Action Festival
Share
YOUR STORY
About
Team
Menu

Close

Please take a minute to improve Mann Mela
X
Did you find this information helpful?
How has reading this website/story impacted your understanding of mental health?
Do you think reading this story has made you more comfortable talking about mental health?
Are you more likely to talk to someone or seek help if you face a mental health challenge?
Are you likely to share this story with others?
Thank you for your feedback!

It help us to make our website better :)
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the feedback!

This website uses cookies. Learn more

Listen to our latest Podcasts