College students take to street plays to bust stigma of mental health

College students from six states have been staging impactful street plays to raise awareness about mental health and suicide prevention. Through creative dialogue and songs, they emphasize the need for open conversations and remind those in distress that they are not alone. The initiative, launched on World Suicide Prevention Day, is part of a larger social enterprise, Mpower, which works to create a positive atmosphere and foster peer-to-peer interactions. #WeAreEarForYou.

Through this week college students from six States staged impactful and engaging street plays that put the spotlight on mental health and suicide prevention among their peers and how and where could they seek help.

Scripted collectively by students of three Mumbai-based colleges – Whistling Woods International, Garware Institute of Career Education and Development, and Atlas SkillTech University – and endorsed by a team of psychologists, the street play focusses on a youth’s unrequited love and his descent into depression. Those around him either fail to see his symptoms or avoid him for his negativity, even as he screams silently that he wants to live and be happy. The play ends with a message to normalise conversations around mental health because people want their suffering to end, not their lives. “You are not alone’ is conveyed powerfully with a hashtag: We are #Ear for you

Given the rise in student deaths by suicide in India in the past five years and the growing concern over the mental health of the country’s young population, the initiative to empower students to champion mental health in colleges through street plays was launched earlier on September 10 to coincide with World Suicide Prevention Day.

The street play was first performed at Garware Institute, on campuses in the University of Mumbai, and since then has travelled to Sophia College and Atlas in Mumbai; the Dolphin (PG) Institute of Biomedical & Natural Sciences, Dehradun; the B K Birla College of Arts, Science & Commerce, Kalyan, Maharashtra; NITTE University, Mangalore; the Rungta College of Engineering & Technology in Bhilai, Chhattisgarh; and the Sambhram Institute of Technology, Bengaluru.

In each city, local college students from various backgrounds came together to showcase their talent and enact the play. They tweaked the songs and dialogues to be region-specific but retained the emphasis on the need for open and meaningful dialogues with those in distress.

The culminating performance of the week-long staging will take place at PR Pote Patil Engineering College & Research in Amravati, Maharashtra and Indraprastha Engineering College, Delhi-NCR on September 15.

“The street plays work as an effective tool to communicate the importance of mental health and create a supportive environment for those who may be struggling,” says Pearl Fotedar, Delhi-based life skills counsellor.