The Mental Health Hats, a youth-led project to hack the Right To Health

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Mental Health Hats

Assuming hackathons are for those who know how to code, I never joined them. Thanks to Kids Hack The Crisis Hackathon, they proved me wrong. I am glad to not only have joined the hackathon but also have led my team to victory.

Kids Hack The Crisis is a unique and friendly hackathon. It captures the effects of the crisis from the perspectives of the children. An online global hackathon organized by the Swedish Institute, a government agency, and UNICEF Sweden. This hackathon consists of 3 tracks namely - The Spark, The Experience, The Challenge. The challenges include Right To Education, Right To Health, End Poverty, End Violence and Right To Participation. We surprised ourselves with what we could do. Our team immensely enjoyed Kids Hack The Crisis Hackathon.

Our team, The Mental Health Hats , hacked the Right To Health challenge. We created a website called Mental Health Hats . Yes, Mental Health Hats is not only the name of our team but also our website, funny, is it not? To be honest, I don't quite remember how it ended up this way. Anyways, our team prefers the terms "mental health support platform" to "website".

The foundation idea of the Mental Health Hats team is to provide free mental health care services. The Mental Health Hats support platform has various features which can help deliver free mental health care services. The website has features like: 

1. An information and updates feature which will provide articles, tips and tricks to curb mental health problems and more.

2.The Buddies Program, where a group of children will be introduced to a mentor or an expect forming a virtual support circle. This program will take place in sessions through video call.

3.A donation feature.

4. Helplines and Therapy services in your local area will be listed down on our website so that everyone can have an immediate reference when they need help.

5. Volunteers are welcome!

6. Children today are quite active on a plethora of online platforms hence  we plan on creating a Discord server, besides connecting on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter...

7. Emergency sessions. These sessions can be accessed by getting in touch through the contact information like email address, phone number and social media handles provided.

8. Other resources involve recorded instructions about meditation and other remedies and tips to reduce stress.  

9. Conducting webinars, programs and activities about self-improvement and self-care for free so that more people can attend and benefit from them.

10. Partner With Us feature. University students majoring in the relative fields of mental health can conduct activities, webinars and Zoom sessions. Mental Health Care Service Centers can advertise their services on our website. Representatives from clinics, hospitals and other organizations can help educate about maintaining a positive mental health.

We hope to destigmatize mental health problems and spread awareness and support positive mental health.

Why this topic?

Our team believes that health, especially mental health, is a popular concern in today's scenario. From children, teenagers to adults and old people, every age group has a different mental health. One of our team members had some personal experience with mental health illness in the past, that is why she understands how hard it could be to struggle with mental health problems and even harder without proper treatment and support.  

Our team read a quote by professor of psychology Noam Shpancer: 'Mental health is not a destination but a process. It's about how you drive, not where you're going.' This quote instilled motivation in our team. We hope that our website helps in that process.

The Mental Health Hats team website wants to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, target 3.4 precisely, to reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being.

We also hope to destigmatize mental health problems and spread awareness and support positive mental health.

HELP IMPROVE , HEAL , SUPPORT  THE  HEALTH OF MIND is the slogan of the Mental Health Hats team and website. With the help of UNICEF Sweden, we hope this website can be officially published. We look forward to having the website frequently updated on resources, programs and more. We believe everyone has the right to mental health care help for free if possible, to sustain us through the hardships in our life. At last, we really hope UNICEF Sweden can help in implementing and improving the idea.Kids Hack The Crisis was a truly enriching experience. Let's make sure to participate in their next hackathon!                      

About the team

The Mental Health Hats team consists of 4 members from different parts of the globe. The youngest member on our team is 13 years old and the oldest is 16 years old. Here is a short introduction of each member and their role in the Mental Health Hats team during the hackathon: 

Meet Izabele. Izabele Lenkutyte was the youngest and the last member to join our team. She helped with editing the website. Next, we have Somanath. He is from India. Somanatha Pai created the presentation of our solution and the logo of our website. The third member is Vianna. She is from Malaysia. Vianna Ong initiated and created the website. Lastly, we have the team lead, Treesha Swami. I delegated the work among the team members , proposed the foundation idea for the solution. Besides, I helped with the website.  


 

During the hackathon Kids Hack the Crisis, children from different parts of the world gathered online to create solutions to problems that afflict them as a result of the corona pandemic. They learned about prototypes, execution of ideas, artificial intelligence and programming.

Now UNICEF Sweden needs your help to make their innovative ideas a reality. Do you want to learn more about the Mental Health Hats and other solutions? Maybe your organization or company wants to work further with the children's ideas in order to make them a reality? Please contact shanti.ingestrom@unicef.se

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