Support Care-centered schooling for young people in Mumbai

Ansihka (name changed) had a rift with one of her classmates Rekha in school (name changed), their caregivers got involved and complained to the director of the school to punish Anishka. Anishka in a fit of anger actioned a punch towards one of the caregivers complaining about her.

Take a pause and imagine this situation, a 6-7-year-old actioning a punch towards a caregiver, and think about the emotions that the student, the caregivers and the school staff would have been experiencing. This incident happened at one of our schools. What happened post this shook us to the core and made it visible how important an emotionally care-induced school system should look.

Our team at Khoj (school run in partnership with the government) proceeded with a two-fold response to this situation:

• Sangeeta (Director at Khoj) took the students to separate rooms to have a conversation
• Lekha (Social Worker) sat with the caregivers to process their emotions

Sangeeta could create a safe non-judgmental environment while talking to the students and that led to Anishka sharing that she is been abused and hit by adults at home and that actioning a punch was an expression of anger rooted in the incidents she had experienced. Rekha and Anishka worked on their issues and resolved them, and even talked to their caregivers to let this go.

This could happen because, at Apni Shala, our educators believe students however young they are, are the experts of their lives and that they have the agency to express, emote and work on their self-regulation. What Sangeeta did in this situation was an example of how not blame and shame, but care and compassion can support our young people to not only understand the repercussions of their actions but also offers them a space to work on and navigate through their emotions.

Once again, let’s take a pause and consider the following:

• What happens when our children are stuck in systems of acute poverty?
• What happens if their parents are responding to so many challenges on a daily basis?
• Where does it come out and in what way?
• How are adults in our children’s ecosystem taking care of children?
• When are they not able to, and why?
• What happens if children come to schools with such emotional distress?
• What is the impact of this on their learning and growth? What is the role of schools then?

To respond to this, Apni Shala began a journey of building schools centered around care, compassion, and wellbeing in 2015. Today, we are working with the government school system in three wards of Mumbai city with the lowest Human Development Index, and building such care-centered learning spaces in 23 government schools for young people to feel safe, valued, and heard.

Through Social Emotional Learning (SEL), Apni Shala enables students to understand themselves, manage stress and other challenging emotions, understand the views and experiences of others, build healthy relationships and work together to create communities where everyone can grow. As a part of our work, we partner with teachers and families of the students we work with since they plan an active role in promoting the mental health and wellbeing of students. 

Most of our students experience socio-economic marginalization, and research indicates that children and young people living through such chronic hardships are 3 times more likely to experience a mental illness like depression or anxiety. Chronic hardships can also lead to low self-esteem in young people, which is another risk-factor for mental illness. Presenting an anecdote from another of our partner schools:

A grade 8 student, while talking about self-confidence, shared, “I feel dumb.”

Shahbaan Shah, the facilitator in that class, spent time one-on-one with the student to understand where is this response coming from. Together, they recognized that the student has experienced a lot of isolation and bullying. And this response was coming from those experiences.

Shahbaan then altered his place of seating in the class to move closer to him and included practices in the class where he could find aspects of himself that he liked. After a couple of sessions with him, in one of the self-image reflection activities he shared, “I may be dumb but I love myself”.

From not being able to write a single positive thing about himself to sharing about love for self reiterates the criticality of access to continuous spaces of healing for students in school and adults who fiercely believe in each and every student in the class. That’s what team Apni Shala is doing. Ensuring that all classrooms, especially those that serves children from marginalized communities, find that space and that one adult. 

Call to Action:

With this campaign, you can ensure that 2590 students have that one educator who does exactly this for them. We aim to raise INR 60 lakh rupees which will ensure access to 1 year of Social Emotional Learning for 2590 students. 

We need your support to make this happen.

We believe that everyone who enables Mental Well-being for our students and their families is a Mental Health Ambassador. Whether you create awareness, advocate for children’s mental health, or donate to keep our work going, you are making Mental Health work possible. 

Join us, Be a Mental Health Ambassador. Donate. Share widely.