PRESS RELEASE INDIA EXCELLENCE FORUM – GAUTAM BUDDHA UNIVERSITY EVENT

India Excellence Forum (IEF) organized a mega event for all its stakeholders, the World Mental Health Day, in collaboration with Gautam Buddha University, Noida, on October 13 2019 with a core focus on Suicide Prevention. IEF is India’s top not-for-profit organization working on adolescent behavioural & mental well-being across the country through its ‘India Centric’ personalized individual support to adolescent students, their parents & teachers. Having established that out of 253 million adolescents in our country, the 70 million adolescent students-in-education are the next generation of adult population on whom the future of our country immediately depends; IEF launched its signature solution called the BE WELLTM Behaviour & Well-Being Framework which details the manner & method of responding to adolescent student’s Behavioural challenges through collaborative participation instead of episodic interventions. The framework is a triphasic district-wide adoption model and was presented to & launched by the honourable Chief Guests Shri Harivansh Narayan Singhji, Deputy Chairman Rajya Sabha and Brig. Dr. Rakesh Gupta, Director Government Institute of Medical Sciences. National Mental Health Survey of India 2015-16 states that nearly 150 million people in our country are in need of active interventions out of which 9.8 million fall in the age group of 13-17 years. IEF believes that this is a demand from us as a society to come forward & participate in foundational improvement & ensure preventive action on suicide, criminal indulgences, deviancies, tech addiction & substance abuse. With an intent to keep the initiative on mental health sustained, IEF shaped the event as the start of a continuous relationship with Gautam Buddha University, schools in Noida, resident communities, police stations and local area management councils to collaborate on creating awareness on the subject of mental health among students, parents, teachers and engage with people & local enterprises to come forward & support such an initiative. To support this collaboration IEF along with GBU will run year long program series. IEF’s founding team has immense on-ground experience in making such things happen. Probir Roy, President IEF & the torch bearer of the cause says, “We will select, sponsor, train & certify 100 Behavioural Mentors in a phased manner for Noida and conduct BE WELLTM interventions in schools, colleges & communities in the region”. Manab Misra Secretary General IEF & the project execution genius says ,”In the last few years IEF has addressed more than 20,000 students, teachers, parents & principals from Kupwara to Mangalore & Mumbai to Hojai in Assam.” Arti Ahluwalia, Vice President IEF & developer of the BE WELLTM Framework believes, ”Children who are in the age group of 13-17 years will live in the world till 2080 & therefore need direction on how to remain relevant for the next 30 to 40 years of their life to help the world cope with change. This can’t happen without a method and a national level mind-set for it ”. Lira Priyadarsini, Head of IEF’s nutrition vertical & an entrepreneur in parenting says, ‘80% of today’s 9-12 class students have some form of mental health issues. This requires a movement by the name ‘Mansik swaasth sey swasth Bharat’.

IEF’s World Mental Health Day was a high energy & high action collection of over 350 visitors as a mix of school students, parents, college students, psychologists, mental health professionals/organisations & government dignitaries. IEF awarded 8 Fellowships to students of Psychology at Gautam Buddha University. This fellowship will allow them to learn with IEF and become Behavioural Mentors who will work in the district with adolescents and their ecosystem on improving their individual behavioural & mental wellbeing. IEF constantly creates opportunity for its Behavioural Mentors to adopt the role of ‘fire fighters’ for students in need and is happy to expand this network through such district level collaborations for the district itself. www.thinkief.org [email protected]