The Mind is Most Important – Mental Health Handbook by Child Marriage Survivors in India
India is home to the world’s largest population of women who were married before the age of 18—estimated at 230 million—many of whom face severe mental health challenges stemming from isolation, domestic violence, and restricted autonomy. Mental health is not a luxury; it is the essential foundation for a life lived in dignity and safety, a right enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Recognising this urgent need, our Initiatives for Married Adolescent Girls’ Empowerment (IMAGE) programme in Karnataka is proud to announce the launch of a vital new resource developed in consultation with 40 early married girls trained as mental health champions.
The mind is like a garden — if we nurture it with care, it blossoms; if neglected, it withers.
— Collective voice of early married girls trained as mental health champions
This publication, ‘The Mind is Most Important: A practical handbook for Mental Health Champions’, is part of a community-led initiative designed to build resilience and coping mechanisms among early married adolescent girls, while also applicable to diverse contexts promoting positive mental health. Developed in partnership with the Children of India Foundation, with support from child rights practitioner, Dr Vasudeva Sharma, and local peer leaders, this handbook offers knowledge, strategies and steps to practice mental well-being effectively.
The Urgent Need for a Child-Centred Mental Health Model
In Karnataka, where 23.2% of marriages involve children, early marriage severely impacts the young girls’ mental health, contributing to high rates of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Compounding this, less than 1 in 10 people with mental health disorders in India receive evidence-based treatment, a gap that is even wider for early married girls due to stigma and lack of resources.
The IMAGE programme’s Goal 1 is explicitly to raise mental health literacy and empower these girls as champions. The handbook is part of this effort, piloted with over 2,000 girls across various communities, utilising research tools co-developed with the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) to ensure evidence-based implementation. Its primary objective is to equip girls with knowledge and skills, directly addressing the core barriers to well-being.
The handbook’s content is structured around four core units:
- Self-Care and Stress Management: Offering practical, accessible steps for daily mental hygiene, including relaxation techniques and recognising personal boundaries.
- Mental Health – An Introduction: Demystifying common concerns like anxiety, depression, and trauma reactions, and actively combating the stigma that prevents help-seeking.
- Communication and Relationships: Focusing on building non-violent, respectful interaction skills to improve family and marital harmony.
- Family and Community Engagement: Emphasising that mental health is not an individual failing but a collective concern, urging families and local leaders to provide love, safety, and shared responsibility.
The publication provides “Ten Steps for Mental Health and Wellbeing,” equipping the girls to be “Mental Health Champions” capable of identifying distress signs and, critically, normalising conversations about mental health to encourage peer support.
A Roadmap for Systemic Change
This peer-led model is designed for easy replication and scaling across diverse cultural contexts and regions. The profound impact of the handbook stems from its participatory design; the concepts are explained using everyday analogies and reflection activities, ensuring the knowledge is immediately practical and relevant. On this World Mental Health Day, we are delighted to share this crucial work as a model for trauma-informed, community-led intervention. This handbook provides a vital roadmap for partners globally, proving that by centring the voices and lived experiences of survivors, we can drive systemic transformation for more supportive, protective, and mentally healthy environments.
