Poets, writers, comedians and storytellers will come together to create a safe space to discuss mental health
Calm Spaces aims to discuss mental health via art
This Saturday, a 19-year-old boy will talk about his journey from Deolali to Mumbai and how music helped him cope with displacement. Three other millennials will discuss issues around mental health through personal experiences of living alone in the city, loneliness in times of war, and a love for making people laugh. The idea is to use different forms of art - poetry, music, storytelling and comedy - to create a calm space and discuss issues ranging from anxiety to depression.
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Aekta Khubchandani
Smita Sahay writer, poet, editor, and co-founder of the Usawa Literary Review, and a survivor of fibromyalgia, founded Calm Spaces, earlier known as AccioHealth. "AccioHealth worked on diagnosis, screening and hand-holding. We completed a successful pilot. However, the issue of mental health, we realised, was a much deeper one.
It was not only a medical issue - it was more a cultural one. The stigma that illnesses such as depression or fibromyalgia carry, creates an un-scalable wall for most people, cooping them in their loneliness, pain and shame," says writer, poet and illustrator Aekta Khubchandani who is curating Saturday's event.
Smita Sahay
"The aim is to create a safe space by encouraging conversations about mental health, mental illness and everything in between. We want to spread awareness and also encourage acceptance in society. We wanted to weave the larger motive together with expression and poetry. We want to interact and listen to people's stories and while we're at it, we want them to have fun and be at ease," she signs off.
ON: May 26, 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm
AT: The Castiko Space, Versova, Andheri West.
CALL: 9930826022
LOG ON TO: insider.in
COST: Rs 179
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