A Journey Towards Fighting Depression
SAATH, it’s not just the name of our society, it’s a journey. A journey of the endless efforts of three people: Sameia, Wahab, and Sammra. We started off with an idea and transformed it into reality. Depression is something which is now quite common in our society, but no one takes stand against this soul-sucking monster. Considering the recent suicides happened in Lahore, we decided to stick to this topic. We knew that the journey is not going to be easy for us, but we were hopeful that together we can make it happen.
Meeting the Goal
The goal of Team SAATH was to spread awareness in youth about depression, its symptoms and causes, and how to cope with it by bringing positivity in life. SAATH further portrayed itself as an online counseling medium where people can share their sufferings. The awareness was spread through the online campaign as well as in-person visits to educational institutions. Media helped us to spread the message to a large number of the population other than the targeted one. The feedback acted as a tool for measuring our progress. We were approached by more than 60% of students with a “Thank You Note” that our tips helped them in their exams. Moreover, their level of excitement in knowing about depression amazed us. This was the moment when we realized that Team SAATH is going on the right track. The online reviews and messages that we receive on the Facebook page was an affirmation that our message was reaching out to youth. We also created a Facebook poll and a survey for measuring the effectiveness of our online campaign. We further conducted two in-person awareness sessions which collectively covered around 200 students aged between 16 to 28 years. Although we planned to have more sessions and collaborate with the organizations working on mental health, this is where our challenges part lies.
Challenges
The way someone tells a story, the journey seems fascinating. Do you think that the journey of Team SAATH was easy? No, things are different behind the door. Deciding the topic of the mega project itself was a really big challenge because everyone in our group was coming up with different ideas. At first, a different topic was chosen, but one of the members opposed the decision and after 2 weeks we were standing on the same point where we left off. It was hard to bring each member on the same page, but with the help of discussions we finally came up with the idea of working on depression.
As our group was already lagging behind, we firmly decided to stick to the cause that we selected. We started the planning for effectively carrying out our project, and here time and people ditched us again. From a team of 6, we were only left with 3 members. One of our group members dropped out, one changed his group and the third was left us on our own. We tried our best to coordinate with the only member but no luck. Hence, we three decided to start the project on our own, our morals were high. We wanted to prove that despite just three members, we will be able to make a change in society. Each other’s support was our biggest motivator.
Next challenge we faced while researching about the statistics. Unfortunately, there is no database in Pakistan that officially report mortality statistics on suicides and deaths due to depression. Statistics gave a clear picture of the current areas in which a country is far behind. We searched for news articles and clips, they gave us a clear picture of our target population.
Last and the biggest challenge we faced was in the form of rejections. We approached many institutions but we were refused by giving the reason that “Our students’ exams are near and we don’t want to distract them and let them engage in such activities.” Some even had the issue with our content: “Your content is about depression, it’s a sensitive topic. After hearing this lecture our students will start considering themselves as patients of depression. Why don’t you prepare some lecture related to their exams.”
Despite all these challenges, our sense of social responsibility to make a difference in society kept us motivated and we didn’t give up on our mission.
Outcomes and Scale
Things didn’t go the way we planned but we were able to effect a large number of population. People approached us via our Facebook page and also emailed us. Media helped us to reach a large number of population. Within two months, the awareness campaign of SAATH reached to more than 1700 people in Pakistan. According to the feedback, the in-person sessions were able to help 112 individuals. The people who are following our page updates also lies in the same age group as we targeted.
Moreover, we also planned to collect funds from our social circle and were able to generate a handsome amount (4,500 PKR) which we utilized to meet the expenses of the mega session and saved the remaining amount to buy a domain for our website.
Impact of our Campaigns
Our theme begins its first impact on people through social media. The interest that people were showing in our posts and asking the question about depression, sharing their stories with us showed that our content was reaching to the right people.
Moreover, the students with whom we shared the tips of bringing positivity in your life and avoiding depression, applied them during their exams. As we had their contact numbers with us, so we contact a few of them and their response made us happy. They applied the tips that we taught them and are also fulfilling their social responsibility by helping those who are in depression. Like Team SAATH, these youngsters also believe that we should communicate rather isolate.
Perception and Future Goals
After conducting successful sessions we have decided to carry on our project in long run. For this purpose, we have created an official website of SAATH https://saathpakistan.wordpress.com/ where everyone would be able to contact us. There will be an anonymous forum where everyone can share their problems and have discussions with other members on our website. The website will serve as a free counseling medium.
Moreover, we have also planned to launch our ambassador program very soon as it will help the students to be the representative of SAATH and spread awareness about depression in their respective universities. Our morale is high and one day, we will expand our idea to other cities of Pakistan.
