Mariwala Health Initiative

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Mariwala Health Initiative

A Mental health funding&advocacy agency with a focus on marginalised communities Our goal is to improve the overall well-being in India.

The Mariwala Health Initiative (MHI) is a funding organisationin the field of mental health in India. We conceptualize well-being as a combination of mental health and social factors and aspire to create a holistic mental health ecosystem in India that is accessible to everyone across social landscapes. We are a catalyzing and enabling force for organizations that strive towards this goal. We align with a rights-based, psychosocial approach that consider mental health concerns as a disability. We expand on the narrow medical understandings of mental health and illness and looks at it through a systemic lens. We understand caste, gender, religion, region, ability and sexuality based oppression as a major contributor to mental health distress. We encourage community-based interventions and actively promote deinstitutionalization of mental health services. We are a feminist, LGBTQ affirmative and user-survivor centered organization.

27/02/2026

Colonial violence sediments in the psyche.

In the work of Frantz Fanon, we are reminded that what gets diagnosed as “disorder” is often a rational response to humiliation, occupation, apartheid, racial capitalism, and ritual dehumanisation. A psychiatry that refuses to name these conditions will keep mistaking injury for pathology.

To speak of mental health in the postcolonial context is to speak of history. It is to ask who benefits when distress is individualised, medicated, and stripped of context. It is to insist that fractured identities are not personal failures, but political outcomes.
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21/02/2026

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Today is a reminder that knowing our rights is key to asserting cultural identity.

This movement was more than a fight for language - it was a demonstration of across religious, social, and economic divides. Its legacy still stands as a foundational principle for identity, political rights, and linguistic . Swipe to read >>

20/02/2026

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MGNREGA made work a legal, demand-driven guarantee — stabilising rural incomes despite delays and bureaucratic hurdles.

Replacing it with capped, centrally notified allocations weakens income predictability and bargaining power.

When livelihoods become uncertain, stress, debt, migration, anxiety, and depression rise.

Work protections are mental health protections. Swipe >>

17/02/2026

An article by Dr. Divine Love A. Salvador got published in the Philippine Journal of Psychology, by The Psychological Association of Philippines (PAP). In this piece, Dr. Salvador revisited her experience as a participant of a specific MHI-QACP Course developed to guide MHPs from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Africa. It shares a glimpse of how the course helps to reshape the approaches in counselling and therapy work with clients — through sharing insights, providing resources, and challenging the pathologisation of queerness that is so normalized within MH disciplines.

Dr. Salvador's reflections present how the relevance of QACP remains, considering the representation across mainstream media and other systems still harbours heavily biomedical and restrictive views on queer-trans lives and affirming care.

📖 Link in bio.

16/02/2026

What does it mean to prevent su***de in ways that are sustainable, relational, and grounded in everyday realities?

S**C is designed for community-based teams committed to moving beyond individualised frameworks — towards shared responsibility, structural understanding, and rights-based support. Through collaborative learning and applied practice, organisations build dedicated su***de prevention teams that centre dignity, context, and connection.

Apply now.
🔗 Link in bio

14/02/2026

Psy-disciplines, popular culture, and state institutions have historically colluded to frame cis-heterosexual couplehood as the primary site of care —and romantic love as the ultimate cure. This framing pathologises gender-sexuality, disciplines bodies, and regulates relationships that refuse to conform.

Valentine’s Day reproduces these ideologies by pedestalising the idea of romantic love — while conveniently obscuring how caste, class, disability, religion, gender, and sexuality shape who gets access to it. Swipe to read >>

13/02/2026

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Launched in 2019, Asur Akhra Radio responds to the dominance of majoritarian languages by creating space for Indigenous voices in public life.
Operating across markets in Latehar and Gumla districts of Jharkhand, the radio uses PA systems instead of FM frequencies or mobile signals making communication possible in regions where digital access is limited.

Songs, stories, and conversations recorded by community members travel through bazaars on cycles, trucks, and on foot. Being heard in everyday spaces affirms presence, dignity, and belonging showing how communication itself becomes care.

12/02/2026

Workplaces are not neutral. Power, privilege, and exclusion shape who belongs — and who is left out.

The Fault in Our CHAI invites organisations to collectively examine these dynamics and build affirmative practices across hiring, team-building, and organisational culture. Led by facilitators with lived experience of marginalisation, TFC supports teams to reflect deeply and implement real-time change.

Applications open for social sector organisations.
Deadline: 26 Feb 2026
🔗 Link in bio

10/02/2026

Unchecked use of AI tools on digital platforms may speak of increased accessibility and convenience but chatbots such as Grok, without governing policies to guide it, amplify the vulnerability of the groups that already carry the burden of systemic violence and discrimination.

It is necessary to understand that digital systems too must operate safely and ethically, to prevent violations of rights to dignity, safety, and .

06/02/2026

FGM is a manifestation of gendered social control and violence, sustained in many contexts by norms that restrict bodily autonomy and silence survivors. Survivor-led movements are essential in challenging this silence, as centering lived experience reveals the qualitative dimensions of harm that statistics alone cannot capture.

As emphasized by the WHO and human rights advocates, prevention efforts must be paired with holistic care — including medical, psychological, and social support. In India, existing reports underscore the urgent need for intervention through community education and accessible mental health services for survivors, as part of broader public health and rights-based strategies. Read >>

03/02/2026

Often, when people die by su***de, their distress is framed in individual terms — through questions about “pre-existing mental health conditions” or supposed failures to cope with stress that is treated as normal or expected. Such framings obscure the social and structural factors that shape suicidal distress.

In the case of Booth Level Officers, working conditions, excessive workloads, and systemic pressure are central to understanding this distress. Individualised narratives also remove the question of preventability from public discussion, allowing harmful systems to remain unexamined.

We need to shift this conversation — towards accountability, working conditions, and the systems that produce harm. Read >>

02/02/2026

The state-sanctioned decision to cut down mangrove forests - a natural buffer against flooding, storms, and rising carbon levels in Mumbai and surrounding areas - exacerbates the inequities already present in access to land, livelihood, safety, and care.

The lack of inclusive planning and support mechanisms intensifies existing anxiety and trauma in the most vulnerable populations. Protecting mangroves is not only crucial for sustaining climate resilience, but also a much required step towards recognising their rights to safety, dignity, and mental health. Read >>

Address

Grande Palladium, Old CST Road, Kalina
Mumbai

Telephone

+912266480500

Website

http://www.mhi.org.in/

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