Depression is a Prison — Escape, I Repeat, Escape!
Depression — just like its name is an evil beast. It’s nothing less than a blood-sucking monster; it’s a demon, which follows you and costs you much more to lose. It will pinch you first and then will make you feel agitated. It will follow you and will look for the moment you when you lose control over yourself. It finds you in your lowest times and takes hold of you. After his demonic presence, you will feel low, fatigued, and jittery. The demon of depression will disturb your eating and sleeping patterns, and it won’t let you concentrate.
Have you ever felt the presence of this demon in your life? Well, most of the Pakistani youth are fighting against this demon. Particularly, talking about Lahore, more than half of its population, to be precise 53.4% is affected with mental illness and its untreatability is leading to a higher suicide rate. This number just triggered our nerves, and we were curious to know why so many people are suffering from this illness. Upon researching, we came to know that it’s youth that’s experiencing more depression.
Being university students ourselves, we thought, why not we select mental health as our mega project topic. By selecting it, we can develop a better understanding of this issue and can play our part in making the lives of others better. We further thought about taking the initiative as a counselor because, in universities, most of the students are away from their home town, they feel homesick, they might not have their family or close friends with them. All they need is a person with good ears, with whom they can share their feelings. After a lengthy discussion, my group was on the same page, and we were all set to join hands to help others to fight the beast of depression.
After the finalization of the cause for which we want to work, the most crucial step was to identify the HOW are we going to help people, mainly, our youth to fight depression. We remembered the 10/90 Rule by Brian Tracy for effective planning. So, we spend more time planning how. Before we proceed further, there was an utter need of the mission statement for our group. So, after much thinking, we formulated our mission.
Next step was to formulate our strategies of counseling so that we can get the answers to the following questions: How are we going to help the students, how to market our idea, how to develop a trust relationship with them, and which universities are we going to target?
How are we going to help?
To support the students for improving their mental health, we decided to provide free consultation services to all those who approach us. For providing the services, we created a facebook page, SAATH which follows the slogan “Communicate, Not Isolate!” A dedicated email account was also designed for communicating. We believe that sometimes a person can share his sufferings in a better way without revealing his identity.
Secondly, we are going to have in-person counseling sessions with university students. In these sessions, students will be told about depression and how it is affecting our own lives and of our loved ones. We will also educate them to identify depressed persons in their surroundings and try to talk to them. We will conduct a total of 4 sessions at the University of Lahore (UOL), Kinnaird College for Women University (KCWU), National College of Business Administration & Economics (NCBA&E), and the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS).
We have contacted Qasim Ali Shah Foundation and were lucky to have a Psychotherapist, Ms. Jahan Ara Rana, on board. She will be the guest speaker in our mega session. Apart from her, Dr. Afia Khalid (Psychologist and Consumer Behavior Specialist) will be guiding us throughout our sessions at UOL and KCWU.
During these sessions, we will carry out different group activities which will help the students in practicing a positive mood and avoiding negative emotions. The will also be told about the power of positive thinking. We mainly aim to have these sessions act as a relaxing therapy for students.
Team SAATH comprises of four individuals and to have a smooth functioning we have divided our tasks. The session manager will be Ms. Sameia Farhat, she’ll be collaborating with Dr. Afia Khalid and the management of all universities. Moreover, she will be working on deliverables, blog writing, and will also observe the page activities.
Mr. Abdul Wahab is seeing our logistics section and social media. He will also be playing a role in the marketing campaign. Mr. Wahab is in contact with Ms. Jahan Ara; therefore, he’ll be leading our mega event.
Ms. Sammra Gillani is assisting us in content development, which will be the main requirement of our counseling sessions. She is also involved in the marketing team of SAATH, as she will be advertising our main event in UVAS.
Our last member, Mr. Ahmed Wasim will be managing our Facebook page and email account. Moreover, he will also be working on creating awareness about depression through other social media mediums.
Together, we hope to play a part in the betterment of youth. Team SAATH will be more than happy to be the reason behind someone’s smile. We will try our best to help the individuals out there to escape from the prison of depression.
