Volunteering Opportunities at NIMHANS

Volunteers from diverse backgrounds like retired people, professional counselors, housewives, college students, and staff working in NIMHANS can assist persons with psychiatric disabilities. Volunteers are welcome to hold arts classes, yoga, domestic skills, paper bag making, computer training, music and dance or any other recreational activities. Volunteers can help in marketing our products. Volunteers can also make a difference to those with psychiatric disabilities by any of the following activities-

• Assisting them in finding employment or income generation activities
• Marketing the products made by those with psychiatric challenges
• Obtaining with welfare benefits for those disabled by psychiatric challenges
• Skill acquisition,
• Transportation,
• Recreation and leisure activities, hobbies and games.
• Fund raising for rehabilitation activities
• Any other useful or interesting activity.

You may choose to volunteer your services part time depending on your convenience. If you are interested in volunteering for our patients, kindly contact faculty at Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, NIMHANS.

Contact:

Email: nimhansrehab@gmail.com

: 080-26995289

: www.facebook.com/prs.nimhans

Youth- Pro Volunteers

Youth – Pro is an initiative that aims at engaging youth themselves in the cause of youth mental health promotion. It involves periodic induction of youth-volunteers who are provided basic orientation on mental health issues, including preventive and promotive aspects of mental health and are supported through formation of small action-groups in carrying out programs and campaigns to fight stigma, create awareness, and popularize the concept of positive mental health in their peers. This initiative was launched in 2011 by the Positive Psychology Unit at the Department of Clinical Psychology under the aegis of the NIMHANS Center for Well-being. The Youth – Pro initiative rests on our belief in the need for a public health approach to mental health promotion and for improving help-seeking behaviors as well as our conviction in the untapped potential of the youth to work towards the cause of mental health.

 What is youth pro volunteering?

1. Announcements for a one-day Youth- Pro workshop for orientation and sensitization towards mental health are made from time to time on the NIMHANS and Youth Spring.net websites. Those who participate in this workshop are encourage and supported to plan and execute mental health awareness programs in their settings.

2. 2 In addition, a group of volunteers from a given campus (minimum 5) can approach us for conducting the above mentioned orientation -sensitization workshops for their group on a mutually convenient date. Following the orientation, the group can plan and execute awareness building and de-stigmatization activities in their campus/ organization

3. Interested individuals can also volunteer for the following activities* that would contribute to development of resource materials for mental health awareness: –

 >Making posters*

>Writing a script for street-play/skit (duration 5-7 mins)*

>Creating a video-clip (maximum duration 10 mins)* or offering their time and talents for performing in short-plays that can be video recorded by us

>Creating a song/poem/short- story*

>Writing an account of dealing with and/or recovering from a mental health issue – (i) first person account, (ii) caregivers’ perspective

>Carrying out email based mass campaigns (details of this task will be provided on request)

*All these activities (e.g. poster making/creating video-clips/ writing a poem /song etc.) should be based on pre-selected themes, as indicated below.

*Pre-selected themes:

Destigmatizing Mental Illness

Feeling Fit Mentally Too: There is no Health without Mental Health

Mental Health 2 Mental Illness: Mental health is not just about/for people with a diagnosis of mental illness.

Look Out For Each Other: Be supportive S Reach Out: Seeking help is not a sign of weakness

Those who wish to volunteer may send us an email stating which of the given activities they may by interested in and their brief ideas/plans about the same. After completion of the activities, volunteers are required to send a report of the work that they have carried out. A testimonial/letter of appreciation will be issued to the volunteers subject to their sending us the report.

The material prepared by the volunteers will be reviewed and edited, as may be appropriate. It will be uploaded on youthspring.net website and/or used for other mental health promotion activities, with due credit to and acknowledgement of the volunteer/s.

**Please note: Youth-Pro volunteering does not include involvement in clinical work or interactions with clients/patients at the hospital.

For more details and periodic announcements, please contact the following:

Email: positivepsychology.nimhans@gmail.com

Website: www.youthspring.net

Contact: 080-26995192