A student of a city-based arts and science college recently approached a counsellor seeking help to deal with distress resulting from body shaming. Bullied on the campus, the hosteller was skipping classes and isolating herself.

While a majority of colleges have an in-house counsellor, it would help to offer them the option of a helpline number.Chennai-based Dhruti Charitable Trust, registered in 2024 as a non-profit, is alive to the need for both. It conducts free mental health workshops in colleges and also offers a helpline number which promises access to professional counsellors virtually and the comfort of confidentiality. A student of a city-based arts and science college recently approached a counsellor seeking help to deal with distress resulting from body shaming. Bullied on the campus, the hosteller was skipping classes and isolating herself.

While a majority of colleges have an in-house counsellor, it would help to offer them the option of a helpline number.

Chennai-based Dhruti Charitable Trust, registered in 2024 as a non-profit, is alive to the need for both. It conducts free mental health workshops in colleges and also offers a helpline number which promises access to professional counsellors virtually and the comfort of confidentiality.

The idea to offer mental health support to youngsters came to Ramji Venkatachari, a non-resident Indian and founder of the Trust, when he spent a semester as researcher with a cohort of 50 students of B.Sc Rural Agriculture of Bharath Institute of Higher Education and Research. The students lived in a village and visited agri establishments as part of the programme.

“Some of the behaviours of these students puzzled me. A few would just cry for no reason. Boys would deal with their frustration with a touch of aggression,” says Ramji. Later, surveys conducted among colleges convinced the tech entrepreneur that there was a need for mental health services for college students. “I am an alumnus of Bharat University, I left for the United States to pursue my Ph.D in the 1990s. Now that I am winding down and coming to settle down in Chennai, this is also a way of giving back to society,” says 58-year-old Ramji.

Engaging with colleges

The Trust is currently engaged with 30 city colleges (both arts and science and engineering). “We are booked for 50 sessions between August and September,” says Ramji, adding that professional counsellors conduct interactive sessions that go on for well over an hour.

Besides giving colleges access to a dedicated helpline number, the team is working on setting up peer support groups in institutes.

“We are going to select five to six students, mentor them to conduct these mental well-being sessions in their own colleges and function like a club. We will be starting this in five colleges as a pilot model this year before we expand. The groundwork for this has already begun at Asan Memorial College and Bharat University,” he says.

Read more about the workshop on The Hindu → thehindu.com