Recent Events About Positivity and Inclusivity

Stress Management Session

Personnel Training & Development Cell, IIT Bombay organised a session on mindfulness, stress management, positive psychology (27th september, Prof B Nag Auditorium)

Highlights:
The 72 year young psychologist, Dr Rajendra Barve was oozing calmness while the technical connections were being sorted out before the start of the workshop on practising mindfulness, positive psychology and stress at Prof B Nag Auditorium, VMCC. The event was kicked off by Deputy Registrar, Mr. Umesh Korade, felicitating Dr Barve on the dais and giving a short tip about the session that was about to begin. He shared his and other staffs’ experience regarding the importance of practising mindfulness and its role in increasing their own productivity.

Dr. Barve started with a brief description of stress, its effects, and motivation to practise mindfulness to overcome it. To keep the 100+ audience engaged he had 1st of many activities of the evening which revealed general human brain behaviour. With good humour and great audience participation he was able to convey a deep message in a convincing way. “Loss in creativity happens when we are doing simple things in a competitive way” concluded Dr Barve, about the core message of the activity.

Further he summarised the state of current nature of life in a mnemonic VUCA
(Volatile, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) and cited this as a source of stress in current times. Explanation of difference between “to react” & “to respond” involved several examples which resonated quite well with the audience. One such example was given about parenting, “Parents often act impulsively to their children’s mistakes. This is a  reaction in contrast to a response which involves parents putting themselves in children’s shoes to have a better understanding of the problem”.

He stated concepts of parasympathetic – sympathetic mechanisms in the human body. Stress, anxiety and other kinds of states come under sympathetic conditions and to balance these, parasympathetic  mechanisms( mechanisms to calm hyper-activated states to normal ones) have to be stimulated. Dr Barve gave a demo and had everyone practice 2 simple kinds of breathing (box breathing & 4-6-8 breathing). This was coupled with experiencing the present moment by feeling the floor in a meditative state.

There was a stern but amusing warning to everyone by Dr Barve which led to perplexed faces in the audience, “Mindfulness practices are so easy that most people don’t continue”.

The session then ended with a round of questions. The audience of the session was diverse with significant people from the staff community of campus, a good number of PhD students who wanted to increase their productivity and have a good work life balance, and a few UGs too!

The session was an eye opener to many daily facets of our life that we don’t often see, and had some easy methods along with scientific researched backed explanations. It made the audience appreciate the natural mechanisms present in our body to overcome complex diseases like stress, anxiety, etc. along with simple techniques to stimulate them. Apart from this a tinge of humour relating the current political facts, social media, digital world too had a good role in keeping the audience fresh and provided a lighter atmosphere to discuss heavy concepts.

SWC Play “Nurturing the gift of life”

On 29th September 2023, the Student Wellness Centre and IITB Hospital collaborated with Sneh Aangan, an NGO working towards mental health awareness and suicide prevention, to present a play on “Nurturing The Gift Of Life” at LTPCSA. 14 members are currently a part of the NGO, of which 5 were present that day. They all came from diverse backgrounds like psychology, psychiatry, spirituality, etc. with several years of experience in their respective fields.

The street play, called “Life is beautiful, if you try”, was presented by the Gaikwad Group. It started off with a conversation between two Gods, Yamraj, the God of Death and Chitragupta, who wanted to explore the nature of the problem of suicide on Earth and possibly find a solution for the same. They discover that various forms of pressure on an individual may cause depression which ultimately, if left untreated, leads to suicidal tendencies. The play tackled the complex problems of suicide and depression in a rather over-simplified way. However, it did highlight several note-worthy points like how counselling is important not only for students but also parents.

After the play, Veena Bose, a psychologist and member of the NGO spoke to the audience and talked about QPR, a good method for mental health resuscitation, where Q stands for questioning an individual while being an active listener, P for persuading them to get help and R for referring the person to an appropriate resource. Audience members also interacted with the Sneh Aangan team and everyone received several take-home messages, some being, ‘grief isn’t linear’ and ‘a call in time can save a life’. The session was later wound up with the recital of an inspiring poem called ‘Lifeline’ written by Leonie D’Mello, the NGO’s founder.

Axis Bank Diversity Workshop

“The moment you start thinking you know everything about diversity, equity and inclusion, your journey [to being an informed and aware citizen] ends”

These were some of the words spoken by Harish Iyer (Longtime Queer Rights Activist and Head of DE&I at Axis Bank) and Vaijayanti Naik (Head of Wholesale Banking HR and DE&I) from Axis Bank, who are deeply passionate about this cause.

On September 30th, Saathi and SC/ST Cell, in collaboration with Axis Bank, organised a thought-provoking workshop focused on the topic of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I). The workshop was an attempt, among other things, to generate awareness about these topics, how they are different from each other and how DE&I intersects with the corporate sphere.

Vaijayanti explained how diversity celebrates the richness that arises from the myriad paths people take to reach where they are in life. Inclusion is about preserving your uniqueness and accommodating others. Harish strongly emphasised that the phrase ‘reasonable accommodation’ and not ‘compromise’ reflects the true meaning of inclusion. Harish framed equity as humanity-driven equality. This outlook refrains from judging individuals solely based on who stood first in a competition, but values and recognises those who may have stood third or fourth as well, understanding that they too must have faced unique hurdles in their journey.

They went on to explain how society tries to box us, based on our gender, caste, language and even job title. Inclusion recognises this and encourages one to retain their individuality while collaborating. It is about understanding that it is our duty as a society to include everyone not by trying to fit everyone in the crowd as “one” but by realising and celebrating individual differences.

They highlighted the importance of this in the corporate sector and demonstrated how simple phrases like “hey guys” or “welcome ladies and gentlemen” aren’t representative of the entire spectrum of diversity. Instead, they suggested alternatives like “hey everyone” or “welcome folks” that can be used to be more inclusive when in a social setting.

They also pointed out how several advertisements try to box us based on stereotypes, such as Nirma’s (in)famous tagline “Hema, Rekha, Jaya aur Sushma, sabki pasand Nirma” implying only women are responsible for washing clothes. They explained that widespread social change requires time, and gave the example of how going from this Nirma advertisement to Ariel’s ‘share the load’ campaign took us 20 years as a society. 

Breaking these inbuilt biases in the corporate world is a journey that can be traversed through open conversations within the team and reverse mentorship with senior management – a program where people from historically oppressed communities can engage in dialogue with the company’s leaders to help make workspaces more inclusive.

After that, to engage the audience, the hosts divided the audience into 5 teams of 6 members each for a case study where each team had to do a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis implementing DE&I policies in an FMCG brand/product. The teams presented their analyses and Harish and Vaijyanti provided valuable insights and feedback on the teams’ ideas. This exercise illustrated the intersection of corporate strategy and DE&I initiatives.

Lastly, the hosts played a quick round of “Kick or Kiss”, a fun game to debate any topic in one’s head. The game involves 2 players, one of whom asks the other one to alternatively “kick” and “kiss” a topic in quick succession – which means going over the topic’s merits and demerits to understand it from various perspectives. The workshop wrapped up with this video about gender identity and how we can make small efforts to make our society more accepting and inclusive towards all social groups.

After the workshop, Insight approached Nikhil, the overall coordinator of Saathi, for comments who said “As a club, Saathi aims to popularise this upcoming sector [of DE&I] and take inspiration from IIT Delhi and the nation of Canada, both of which have a separate vertical to address this.”

On the same note, Harish added “Don’t assume people at the top know it all; DE&I education should be all-encompassing!”

SWC Session and Street Play

In collaboration with the NGO Shikshantar, the Student Wellness Centre organised a session on October 13th in VMCC to destigmatize mental health issues. The event started with a nukkad natak (street play) staged by the members of the NGO, which included senior doctor Dr Harpreet, psychologists-in-training and children of the NGO. It was followed by a talk given by a practising professional, Dr Sheba Singh, who has been recognised as one of the Most Prominent Leaders in Mental Health in 2022 by the World Mental Health Congress. 

The street play portrayed the journey of a teenager struggling with depression who tries to confide in family and friends. Unfortunately, his attempts to reach out are met with dismissal and neglect, which leads him to fall into the vicious world of substance abuse. The play depicted how mental health issues can have severe consequences if neglected. It also emphasised that regardless of background, everyone can grapple with this challenging condition. The play concluded by highlighting the importance of reaching out to mental health professionals when one feels this way.

Dr Sheba then started her talk by presenting statistics related to mental illnesses and brought to attention that according to the WHO, India is “the most depressed country”. However, since COVID-19, the stigma around mental health has reduced, and there has been progress. Dr Shoukath Ali, acting in charge of SWC, later confirmed this, “We used to get 300 appointments yearly pre-covid, which has increased to 600 appointments a year after COVID.” He also mentioned how the psychiatrist’s OPDs in IITB hospital are always fully booked. 

Dr Sheba went on to debunk myths related to depression and suicide. “A person can be fully functional despite depression”, highlighted Dr Sheba as she discussed warning signs of suicide among struggling individuals and ways to help them get better. She pointed out, “Friends play a pivotal role in helping people struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts, and it is important to be a ray of hope for them.”

The event ended with a Q&A session with Dr Sheba that led to conversations on topics such as the differences between a psychiatrist and a psychologist, and self-help methods for dealing with mental health.