My name is Ranjani Venkatakrishnan and I am a journalism student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University in the United States. Though I'm currently in the US, I’m from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.

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I started this website as an effort to encourage conversation about both depression and differently abled children in India and wanted to make this my honors thesis.

 

I have dealt with depression and saw many of my friends endure depression and the accompanying horrifying self-harm, I wanted to talk about that, people’s experiences, the stigma, and why sometimes we don’t seek help. In recent years, people are spreading more and more awareness about depression, but the problem and stigma still persists. I wanted to explore the unique challenges faced by students in India who experience depression.

 

I was also curious about differently abled children. The first time I saw differently abled children in a school was when I changed schools after 10th standard in Chennai. Sources told me that the school I went to no longer takes in differently abled children and I have since learned that this is the case with many schools who once educated the differently abled and now they no longer do. How then do these children get an education in India? In the U.S. it is mandatory to educate the differently abled and make accommodations for them in schools. Sadly, this is not the case in India. Why? I was curious about what these parents of differently abled students go through.

 

I decided to do both, to focus on depression and differently abled children, because both are equally important yet under-discussed topics in India due to the stigma surrounding them.

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I wanted to pursue in-depth coverage of all aspects of depression and differently abled children so that this website could hopefully be a valuable resource to people in India who need help or simply wish to learn about these topics.

 

I really care about mental health – to the point where I didn’t realize until a few months into this project that I had unknowingly combined both my psychology minor and my journalism major in this thesis. That’s how passionate I am about this.

 

If you would like me to add anything to the resources page or would like to contact me, please email me.

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Keep on smiling!

Love,

Ranjani