Mariwala Health Initiative

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Mariwala Health Initiative

A Mental health funding&advocacy agency with a focus on marginalised communities Our goal is to improve the overall well-being in India.

The Mariwala Health Initiative (MHI) is a funding organisationin the field of mental health in India. We conceptualize well-being as a combination of mental health and social factors and aspire to create a holistic mental health ecosystem in India that is accessible to everyone across social landscapes. We are a catalyzing and enabling force for organizations that strive towards this goal. We align with a rights-based, psychosocial approach that consider mental health concerns as a disability. We expand on the narrow medical understandings of mental health and illness and looks at it through a systemic lens. We understand caste, gender, religion, region, ability and sexuality based oppression as a major contributor to mental health distress. We encourage community-based interventions and actively promote deinstitutionalization of mental health services. We are a feminist, LGBTQ affirmative and user-survivor centered organization.

06/08/2025

The Erwadi fire tragedy remains a stark reminder of the systemic violence prevalent in care facilities and institutions that are supposed to be safe spaces for the structurally oppressed.

In this piece from Reframe 3, Raj Mariwala and Amalina Kohli Dave highlight why it is crucial to avoid the tendency to reinforce linear, ableist, and sometimes carceral approaches in mental health practice - and focus on moving beyond individualising the struggles of persons living with mental illnesses.

At MHI, we stand in solidarity with communities that continue to face violence and discrimination while accessing health care systems.

🔗 https://bit.ly/3JiVDPM

04/08/2025

Women and AFAB persons have historically carried the onus of both providing emotional support and bearing emotional burdens. Psychology, even today, is largely seen as the ‘female’ discipline. Within interpersonal relationships, the woman must perform tenderness, understanding, empathy, and so on. Mothers are cast as selfless and ever-accomodating figures

At IIT Kharagpur, the proposal that women staff serve as ‘campus mothers,’ i.e., provide mental health support, only reinforces this deeply gendered expectation. Read >>

03/08/2025

Older trans people are often less visible because many don’t survive long enough to age as openly trans. Trans people face disproportionate levels of violence, discrimination, and poor healthcare — for those from marginalised class and caste backgrounds, these risks are heightened. Dominant narratives about trans lives tend to be tragic and emphasise difficulty, alienation, and vulnerability.

But this is only one part of trans history. Trans lives are not defined by the tragedies inflicted on them. They are replete with ironic, subversive, and expansive joy — joy that often reveals itself unexpectedly. Our q***r lens of the world helps us find meaning in different moments and places. Our friendships come in many forms, contributing to the levity and happiness that fill our lives.

Sambhavi Varadarajan writes for Queerbeat’s story (supported by MHI): What Trans Elders Can Teach Us About Joy

31/07/2025

Disability justice goes beyond traditional notions of accessibility and inclusion, instead demanding a deep restructuring of society to dismantle the systemic barriers that marginalize disabled people.

It calls for a re-examination of how caste, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, and colonialism shape the very definitions of ‘normalcy’ and ‘ability.’

This is a shout of to some of our partners across India who embody an intersectional approach to disability justice and expand what care, access, and justice can look like. Here’s to more collectives, organisations and civil society actors embracing these principles in thought and practice.

30/07/2025

On , we bring into conversation this year's theme of the need to put an end to the exploitation driven by human trafficking. With the scale of this organised crime increasing every year, it is also crucial to note how victimisation and exploitation remains a concern prior to the crime and even after rescue.

A cursory study of the demographic details of survivors of trafficking shows that they were rarely “well” – physically, psychologically, socially, economically, or politically. This observation calls for a shift in the approach adopted in rehabilitation programmes, through working towards victim-centered rights-based mental health justice for the survivors.

Read the full article penned by Pompi Banerjee here: https://mhi.org.in/voice/details/justice-and-recovery-forced-binary

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25/07/2025

What causes the gaps between policy and practice in the context of Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act? Not bringing all the stakeholders into the conversation on accessibility.

Even after completing education, persons with disabilities face additional challenges while seeking dignified means of livelihood due to ill-equipped facilities and services.

Accessibility is not just about installing ramps and braille dots inside lifts — it is a priority to assess the needs for making the systems capable of assisting as and when required. Drawing on many such lived experiences of persons with disabilities, their caregivers, and Civil Society Organisations (CSO), the Disability Report 2024 hopes to bring overlooked perspectives into discussion.

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24/07/2025

| International Self-Care Day |

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s set of essays — ‘Care Work’ is a mapping of access as radical love, a celebration of the work that sick and disabled q***r/people of colour are doing to find each other and to build power and community, and a toolkit for everyone who wants to build radically resilient, sustainable communities of liberation where no one is left behind.

Powerful and passionate, Care Work is a crucial and necessary call to arms

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17/07/2025

Who bears the Climate Consequences of the war and conflict? Low- and Middle Income Countries (LMICs)

And within LMICs, persons with disabilities are disproportionately affected due to severe weather extremities and inaccessibility to healthcare, housing, and assistive devices. Not to mention, disaster risk reduction efforts are rarely disability-inclusive.

On International Criminal Justice we reflect on what ‘justice’ means in the context of ongoing violence across the world — through excerpts from MHI Director Raj’s Keynote Address at ‘Climate Crossroads: Prioritising Human Security’ by in September 2024.

Layout Desigh:

14/07/2025

Today is MAD Pride Day

Mad Pride reclaims “madness” as a political identity and challenges how society defines, treats, and marginalises mental distress. At MHI, we mark this day by honouring resistance: of those labelled, silenced, institutionalised; yet still building lives, language, and community on their own terms.

Rooted in Anjali’s long-standing work with people with psychosocial disabilities, especially those living in mental health institutions, this campaign grew out of a need to return story ownership to the people most impacted. Their lives are often flattened into diagnoses, their realities filtered through the voices of doctors, social workers, and caregivers. MAD Stories was our way of creating space for these voices to emerge on their own terms, with their own textures, rhythms, and truths.

10/07/2025

Solutions must centre disabled people.

For MHI’s Zine ‘Unfiltered’ Astha Sharma highlights the bias that shapes treatment of disabled persons, historical views of disability, and the lack of infrastructure to support accessibility. Swipe to know more >>

Art by Shoi

Address

Grande Palladium, Old CST Road, Kalina
Mumbai

Telephone

+912266480500

Website

http://www.mhi.org.in/

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