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
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