HCL Foundation Launches Mental Health Helpline In Madurai Under Happy Schooling Project

HCL Foundation is aiding the Happy Schooling Project in Madurai among the 24 Corporation-run schools since 2017-18. With the project, a conducive and happy environment for students could be created along with building a strong bond between teachers and students.

This project is being supported by NIMHANS, Bangalore. For the implementation of the project, a detailed curriculum has been set on mental health literacy.

With the help of Madurai Corporation, the foundation recently launched Speak2Us mental health helpline 93754-93754 to support the students in distress or in need of any psychosocial support.

In the last three years, the project has reached out to 11,253 students and more than 250 teachers.

For developing competencies of a counsellor, more than 50 teachers along with the school heads have been identified. Further, a six-day intensive training will be provided to them so that they would be in a position to counsel students.

As per the source, a four-tier mental health literacy session is conducted with the heads of schools; teachers; parents and the students themselves. The main objective behind this is to focus on the mental well being of the students.

More than 1400 students of Grade X and XII participated in a session conducted on the topic of "Art of Writing Exams" to ease out their exam fears. In addition to this, career guidance programmes were also held to help students in choosing courses for their higher studies.

A student support centre has been set up which will identify students with psychosocial needs.

Incase any intervention is required, these students could be referred to as project counsellors. Apart from this, the students have been encouraged to exhibit their talent through poems/essay/drawing/posters on any social topic every month for 'Wall Journal' which has been placed in each school.

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