October 19th is the birthday of our beloved daughter Catherine and we honour her memory by commemorating this day as Anti-depression day every year. This year we wanted to educate and empower our children at the Center about the fight against depression. Many of our children come from lower middle-class families wherein they face challenges like lack of money, lack of basic needs, lack of love and care, and lack of guidance. Adding to that, addiction to alcohol and drugs, gambling, quarrels between parents, and physical and mental abuse are common in some of their families. So, our staff took the initiative and taught them the whole of last week about various scenarios which can lead to depression and how they can handle it wisely. The topics covered were: Read More
1. Challenges in their home/family
Fights between parents, alcohol addiction, physical and mental abuse, and financial struggle.
2. Challenges in school
Peer pressure, physical and sexual abuse, rejection, and bullying.
3. Challenges in society
Forced to take drugs and alcohol by neighbourhood youngsters, stalked by the opposite gender, and verbal abuse.
4. Challenges in the adolescent stage
Infatuation, aggression, violence, identity issues, and physical and emotional changes due to hormonal changes. It was an eye-opening experience for our children and some of them said they could relate to it in their personal life. Few of them expressed their thoughts to us. One of the students, Shyamvel said, "My father is addicted to alcohol, and every day he quarrels with my mother. This has affected my mental health very much. But now I am learning to face it and will not allow it to affect my mind".
Vaishnavi said, "My family is struggling financially, and sometimes we don't even have food to eat. My father doesn’t support us and whenever he gets angry, he beats me up badly. I could open up and share my problem with my teachers here at the Center. Now, I am learning to overcome this problem in my family".
Livinesh said, "My neighbourhood boys have always forced me to take drugs and alcohol. I didn’t know how to handle it and now I am learning to say no to them boldly and not give in to peer pressure".
On October 19th, we invited two prominent student counsellors from ‘The Counsellor's Consortium’, Chennai to guide our children about how to identify the signs of depression, how to seek help when they go through it, and how to face the challenges in life without giving up. It was an interactive session and the children enjoyed it so much. Also, the staff did a skit on what are the things that can make our life difficult to go forward.
Later, we distributed prizes to the winners of the speech competition, poem competition, drawing competition, and debate which happened on 18th October at our Center. Then the children cut a cake with much excitement remembering Catherine on her birthday. It was indeed a fun-filled learning and a most memorable day for all of us.
