Cultural/Context information for the jury

Indian schools do not have a mandatory mental health curriculum in place. Class sizes are large and the teacher student ratio of 1:60 does not permit adequate individual attention towards each child. There are less than 10000 therapists to cater to 1.3 billion people. Indian students have to face a lot of competition for a limited number of seats in colleges owing to the huge labour pool present in the country. The constant pressure to perform right from a young age keeps building up, in the absence of regular, healthy discussions on the same. The problems of childhood later extend to adulthood in the form of mental illnesses. Even though, the course of openly talking about mental health issues is a tough one, enabling students to take care of their own well-being can certainly help in combating these issues while also creating a positive platform for discourse in future.