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Tareq Shahriar, an unemployed youth, had been suffering from severe depression for three years after his graduation from a private university in Dhaka.
Sleeplessness at night and worries about career were making his condition worse gradually, impacting his physical health as well. At one point when he was searching for a solution to his problems online, the name of a mental health service provider appeared on his mobile screen – Moner Bondhu.
He contacted the platform on Facebook and described his problems. A few minutes later, he received a message containing a few video links and expert advice related to his problems. He followed the advice and was finally able to solve both his mental and physical problems within three months.
Like Tareq, many suffer from depression and other mental health problems in the country. As many as 71 per cent of Dhaka city dwellers suffer from depression while 68 per cent have various physical problems, said a 2019 Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies survey.
How Moner Bondhu started
Moner Bondhu is a mental health support centre, which started its operation in 2016. Tawhida Shiropa, who does not come from a psychology background, founded it based on self-acquired knowledge.
Tawhida, also the chief executive officer at Moner Bondhu, said her mother was suffering from severe depression in 2015. As a caregiver of her mother at that time, she faced a lot of challenges, including the prevailing superstitions and stigma in society.
She later started studying mental health and enrolled in online courses to understand more about psychological matters. But she had no plan to establish any organisation like Moner Bondhu.
At one point, even after being criticised by others, she thought of founding a platform where people could have the chance to talk about their mental health problems and seek solutions.
“We started with eight people in 2016 and built a website as well as an app. We managed to run the website but not the app due to a lack of funds,” Tawhida told The Business Post. “In January 2018, we got an idea project fund from the ICT Division. With that, we began our operations in full swing.”
The company started creating psychology-related content on a large scale by doing research and based on discussions with experts. In 2018, they created 5,000-7,000 contents. Also, 6,000 clients attended counselling sessions and 40 workshops were organised. While building Moner Bondhu, Tawhida also got two scholarships to study psychology abroad.
“We scaled up in 2019, doing three big projects. We also became the first-ever mental health solution partner of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA). 18,000 garment workers in 50 factories received counselling support from us,” Tawhida said.
The organisation signed another deal with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to educate school children about mental health issues, including cyber bullying. It received a grant from the EMK Centre and used that to build six high-quality videos that became very popular. From then on, there was no looking back.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Moner Bondhu shifted its counselling services from offline to online. They also created a feedback system for clients.
“We followed up with 6,500 people, who called us during the lockdown. We do not provide the same service to everyone. We research the socio-economic condition and other aspects of every individual, and then design our services accordingly,” Tawhida said.
In 2020, Moner Bondhu became the champion of the Call for Nation: ACT Covid-19 of the ICT Division.
“Currently, we have 75 staff members, including 35 counselling psychologists. We also have more than 21,000 contents. We have an office in Lalmatia where people can get counselling as well,” Tawhida said.
Statistics
With a pool of psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychosocial counsellors, the organisation has a big team. So far, 78,000 people have received one-to-one counselling while 20 lakh sessions have been held through the organisation’s Facebook group.
Also, 18.5 million hours of counselling sessions have been held. The organisation has run 37 psychology-related projects across the country.
“Our service is not free. But our motto is to be a platform which ensures that not even a single person will be left out of getting psychological support just because of a lack of money.
“People can send us messages on Facebook messenger and groups seeking support and even participate in offline sessions. We provide them with free services in multiple ways,” Tawhida explained.
She said they had managed to build the business in a way so that they could survive even if a segment of their clients cannot pay for services. She also said she is running the organisation not to just make money but to impact people’s lives.
“We recently released a new full-fledged Android app, which is available on Google Play. But there are people who cannot afford internet data or smartphones. Then we decided that people can simply call our hotline seeking advice, and our counsellors will call them back,” she said.
In 2021, Tawhida was among the first runners-up in the UN Women 2021 Asia-Pacific WEPs Awards in the youth leadership category. Last year, Moner Bondhu became the joint global winner in the 5th Commonwealth Digital Health Awards in the category of digital health solutions to fight Covid-19.
“We are trying to reach out to every individual across the country, and our dream is to go beyond the border. We want to be a global mental health service provider. We want people to think about Moner Bondhu when they look for solutions to their mental health problems,” Tawhida added.
