Breaking the Silence, One Conversation at a Time
By: Shaberi Das, Researcher, Sound of Silence When does care actually begin? Community mental health interventions are commonly evaluated through visible indicators: counsellors trained, referrals made, services delivered and people reached. Though indispensable measures of programme performance, they tell us relatively little about the conditions that make care possible in the first place. Before identification, referral or treatment can succeed, a less visible process of building trust and breaking the silence around emotional distress must first create the social conditions that make care possible. The Mon Majhi initiative demonstrates that it is here that community mental healthcare truly begins, with the simple act of asking: “How are you?”, and staying to listen. Fig. 1: A doorstep conversation during a routine Mon Majhi visit. Listening to the field: An archive of everyday emotional life Working in pairs across the project villages, Mon Majhi counsellors – drawn from...
