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Mon Foundation

Nature of Initiative: Implementing

Location: Kolkata, South 24 Parganas and East Medinipur distts, West Bengal

Project Holder: Dr Debasish Chatterjee

Objectives: # To mainstream the broader concept of mental health beyond psychiatric disorders and establish its fundamentality in relation to other human rights. # To create opportunity and forum for the children to participate in decision making process on issues that affect their lives and organize them to develop their health seeking behaviour. # To study psychological disturbances among children, form appropriate tools to minimize or counter its impact. # To increase public awareness on mental health issues. # To increase the number of people who can address such issues and increase access to such treatment.

Reference Group: Children with mental health problems, school children.

Situation: The World Health Organization (WHO) reports 450 million people world wide are affected by mental, neurological or behavioural problems at any time. Furthermore, according to the WHO, most middle and low-income countries devote less than 1% of their health expenditure to mental health. Consequently, mental health policies, legislation, community care facilities, and treatments for people with mental illness are not given the priority they deserve. Barriers to effective treatment of mental illness include lack of recognition of the seriousness of mental illness and lack of understanding about the benefits of services in the realm of comprehensive well being and enjoyment of good health - both physical and mental.

Project brief: Mon Foundation has been working in the areas of awareness, care, research and training, and publication in mental health since 1992. It is constituted mainly of mental health professionals i.e. psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers etc. The guiding philosophy behind Mon Foundation is the belief that mental health affects all facets of an individual's life and therefore a holistic approach is required and it is important that early identification of disability take place such that early intervention can be provided. Mon Foundation is one of the few organizations working on mental health issues of children. More so it is one of the few organizations which regard mental health aspects of children as a key component of child rights. It has established itself as one of the forerunners in promoting the concept of mental health to different sections of the policy makers and the academia.

CRY support since: 1997