Overcome COVID-19 Creatively with Arts and Youth

Location: India

People at the bottom of the social pyramid are facing multiple vulnerabilities. Children and youth in families around the world are facing survival issues due to this pandemic. This lockdown situation in India causes mental health issues for children, young adults, and their families. There was no mental health support from the Govt. or any other non-profit organizations in Puducherry.

TYCL has been working with young people for their positive mental health, working towards zero youth suicide in Puducherry. This coronavirus pandemic is adding fuel to the Puducherry youth mental health crisis. This is a very high time to support young people and their families to keep their mental health stable and develop intergenerational support within families and communities.

These situations drew the attention of TYCL to create online positive mental health support systems and opportunities for young people to cope with challenges of COVID-19 and document the process from a youth-lens. These circumstances made us initiate 'Overcome COVID19 Creatively with Arts and Youth’. TYCL has created a unique bilingual (Tamil and English) website (https://overcomecovid19.in) to support young people to prevent and overcome this pandemic.

TYCL coordinates all the youth-led initiatives virtually with support of various available technologies.

We have initiated the following activities and supported hundreds of people in a week with our internal resources.

1. COVID-19 Mental Health virtual support lines (Phone/text/WhatsApp/Mobile App) with the support of trained local professionals. TYCL is the only mental health service provider in Puducherry and closely working with Puducherry state Govt emergency units.

2. Weekly virtual mental health webinars and panel discussions with experts for young people.

3. Daily virtual open mic for young people to entertain and socialize virtually to promote positive mental health. (We have created google hangout link to add up to 250 youth participants)

4. Click the Truth: COVID-19 Hopes & Challenges: Virtual Photo Exhibition -alternative employment opportunities for young people - COVID -19 Hopes & Challenges photo story submission. Young people are submitting one photo with 100 words story of hope or challenge in Puducherry and beyond and each submission will get Rs 200 on approval.

5. Virtual Creative Space for Children created an online space for children to submit all their creative expressions online to promote positive mental health among children during the lockdown period. There are more resources available for families to support children. Every participant will get an e-certificate after submission accepted.

Post lockdown period mobile mental health clinics will be run in the school, colleges, and communities.
This is a very high time to engage young people and their families creatively to keep their mental health stable and offer support virtually. TYCL team members and volunteers are actively engaged in all the above initiatives and regularly updating each other on the coordination status via the WhatsApp group.

Support

Project particulars

• Website and technology support cost (4000)

• Digital Marketing cost (social media ads) (3000)

• Youth Photo compensation (3000)

• Mental health professional support (22,500)

• Internet cost for volunteers and coordinators (5250)

• Administrative cost (5%) (1887)

• Total: 39637

Other needs: Volunteers

See more: https://overcomecovid19.in/en/home-page/

For more information contact covid19@unmgcy.org