Let’s Talk About Mental Health: Aaryani’s changemaker journey.

This story was written by Aaryani and edited for length and clarity. 

At the age of 12, I started experiencing panic attacks. I couldn’t believe that I was struggling with my mental health. Soon, I reached a point where not seeking help would have become dangerous. When I decided to speak up, some people were supportive and some others tagged me as an ‘attention-seeker’. Eventually, after a year of therapy and with my newfound strength, I had made up my mind to help my peers who may be experiencing what I had. I spoke to over 50 children in my school and community, who were struggling with suicidal thoughts, symptoms of depression, and self-harm. I sensed that they were reaching the same dangerous point. I asked them to seek professional support, but a majority of them refused because of fear of being judged. Their hesitancy and silent struggle made me realize that the stigma around discussing mental health did not just impact me and my friends, but that it is a larger issue that is faced by millions of teenagers around the world.

A fire and resolve grew within me to take action, and at the age of 14, I co-founded Project Let’s Talk- a youth-led initiative that aims to increase mental health awareness and create safe spaces in schools. we conduct awareness sessions in schools across all socio-economic backgrounds. Under the guidance of mental health professionals, we lead our sessions on our own. Our team chose to develop a curriculum in collaboration with experts and began fearlessly leading workshop sessions to end the stigma around mental health. Our workshop sessions are extremely interactive, as we have developed our curriculum in such a way that the majority of the session allows children to connect with each other about their experiences. 

As our project grew, my co-founder and I decided to conduct sessions in predominantly economically weaker areas. A few days before each of these sessions, we would invite volunteers to attend follow-up conversations through social media. Soon, volunteers from across the city started attending our sessions and they went on to form our core team who took up their own roles and responsibilities within the organization. Over the years, the team expanded to include psychologists, post-graduates, and entrepreneurs. We regularly post creative and informative articles in our social media handles, start campaigns for mental health awareness, and interview survivors to amplify their stories. Over the pandemic, we have been conducting webinars featuring expert speakers, through which we are able to reach people from all across India.

Despite the success of my organization, I faced several challenges throughout my journey, both as a leader of the organization and as an individual. Even though my passion spurred me to start Let’s Talk, I had to regularly confront and challenge my self-doubt. When I visited government schools to ask about conducting sessions, many rejected me, and the adult stakeholders with whom I worked with constantly undermined my decisions- claiming that I was not old enough to be taken seriously. While these challenges were difficult, not running away from them and standing up for myself have made me a more confident, happy, and fulfilled person. I realized that being young was not my weakness but, rather, my strength.

Over the past three years, Let’s Talk has conducted 110 awareness sessions and impacted over 3600 students. Our post-session questionnaires report that over 90% of participants feel more comfortable opening up about their mental health after the sessions. To me, that mindset shift is the true impact of Let’s Talk. We have done it with the help of a team of 35+ core members and over 100 volunteers. Recently, we launched a Let’s Talk chapter program aimed at motivating and empowering youth across the world to start chapters of Let’s Talk in their own communities in order to spread mental health awareness. We are currently mentoring 10 chapters by providing guidance, resources, and support, and we hope to activate hundreds of new changemakers in the coming years.

My journey as a changemaker has transformed my life and my personality. I believe it is essential to continue empowering young people to take action on the issues that matter most to them and be unafraid to grow. The insight I would like to share with young people is that it is okay to not know it all. You don’t have to be perfect or have all the answers- you just have to start.