W e spend so much time staring at screens and phones that we often find ourselves stressed, lonely and depressed.
Young professionals, today, are so busy building their careers, that it comes as no surprise when we discover most of them are almost ready to give up on life. The first question that crops up is why not try counselling? “Well, most are scared of being scarred for life with the stigma. That is where YourDOST, our online portal, comes handy,” starts Richa Singh, CEO and co-founder of YourDOST.
Richa and Puneet Manuja started the Bengaluru-based online counselling and emotional wellness platform, which is designed to foster mental health. “It is a pan-India website,” explains Richa, who moved to Bengaluru as she wanted to work for a start-up. The online helpline has been her dream ever since she “lost her friend to depression” in her college.
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“It was a personal experience for me. When my friend killed herself, I started to seek answers to questions such as: Does every one go through stress? And, why did we not reach out to the counsellors that we had in the campus? Though I do not have a background in psychology, I started meeting students, young working professionals and counsellors. I discovered that most of us do go through peer and emotional pressure. Some of my peers were even burdened with relationship breakdowns. Yet, they did not speak about it or seek help. The very idea of going to a counsellor was attached to a stigma,” observes Richa, who started putting up all her study material on her blog, which was later converted to YourDOST.com, which literally translates to “your friend”.
Puneet, too, has a personal story for his involvement with the portal. “I was a gold medallist and was not able to find a good job. That put me through a lot of pressure. I wanted to reach out to many others like me through this helpline,” he states.
“Culturally, there is so much stigma attached to counselling that people do not want to go out and seek help. By logging on to YourDOST, you can reach out to counsellors and psychologists within the confines of your home at a mere click of a button. In fact, in the last two years, we have had people from all sections of the society reaching out to us,” says Puneet.
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Richa claims the online portal has 700 plus experts, spread out across the country. She says, “All you need to do is have a user name and choose the field that you need to talk about. And, soon enough, a trained expert will be notified and get in touch with you.”
On the effectiveness of online counselling, Richa quips, “People find the anonymity comforting. Their identity is not revealed even to their closest friends, unless he/she is a minor, where we seek parental permission. For instance, we had a very young woman, who was raped when she was in high school. She was suffering and was not comfortable telling her family about her trauma. She reached out to us and is now on the road to recovery. She is studying psychology and will soon join us to become a counsellor with YourDOST.”
Talking about the online platform, she says, “Reading material, stories, peer-to-peer sessions are free. When one is comfortable and progresses to voice calls or video calls, then it becomes a paid service.”
“YourDOST also has a 100-day programme to help people keep their new year resolutions. Some are created to build inter-personal relationships, like spending quality time with friends or family,” says Richa.
She adds, “We have designed a special module that can be followed every week. Once you complete the 100 days, we are confident that you can go on for the rest of the year.”
The duo also assures us about the safety of online counselling sessions. “We have a strong screening session for our trainers with mock training sessions. Only if we are convinced of their skills can they come on board.”