Mariwala Health Initiative

Mariwala Health Initiative

The Mariwala Health Initiative (MHI) is a grant making, capacity-building and advocacy organization for innovative mental health initiatives, with a particular focus on making mental health accessible to marginalized persons and communities.

Mission statement

To collaborate with a range of stakeholders in the area of mental health in India in order to:

  • Create wider awareness of concerns
  • Support and enable quality services as well as ongoing research
  • Encourage innovative, culturally sensitive, community-based interventions
  • Work towards capacity building for individuals, organizations, communities, and institutions through training, network building, and knowledge sharing
  • Stimulate law and policy reforms

Vision

MHI will go beyond programme funding and organizational partnerships to help create a community-based, nation-wide mental health ecosystem that is flexible, continually evolving, and accessible to the most marginalized.

Summary of relevant work

We align with a rights-based, psychosocial approach that considers mental health concerns in the context of disability rights. We expand on the narrow medical understandings of mental health conditions and look at it through a systemic lens. We understand caste, gender, religion, region, ability and sexually based oppression as major contributors to mental health distress. We encourage community-based interventions and actively promote the deinstitutionalization of mental health services. We are a feminist, LGBTQ affirmative and user-survivor centered organization. Mariwala Health Initiative:

  • Provides grants and strategic support to organizations and collectives working within communities to provide greater access to mental health services for all 
  • Partners with projects that together constitute a multi-pronged approach, through intervention programs as well as advocacy in the areas of law and policy
  • Reaches out to marginalized populations and communities to alleviate their mental health concerns
  • Invests in capacity building for individuals, organizations, communities, and institutions through training, building networks and knowledge sharing

Key partners: 

Seeking collaboration with

Experts by experience/service users
Other organizations
Policy makers
Researchers

Details

Country(s)
India