We rise by lifting others

Mental illness seems like a taboo no one wants to talk about. People usually feel uncomfortable and hesitant in sharing about their mental illness and due to lack of communication, we see large number of deaths due to depression. For this reason, we (Team Uplifters) decided mutually to work on this issue and provide help to those who suffers.

Uplifters is a non- profit organization that has come up with a mission to provide platform for people especially youth who are suffering from mental health mainly depression and anxiety and does not find any solution how to cope with this problem.

“Your mental health is a priority. Your happiness is an essential. Your self-care is a necessity”.

The whole project of Uplifters is based on the following deliverables:

After choosing the issue, we decided to name our team that would represent us and the issue we are working on as well. As a group, we discussed about the name and after discussing, we set the name Uplifters for our organization.

“You can’t control everything. Sometimes you just need to relax and have faith that things will work out. Let go a little and just let life happen.

Following the Amal principle of Progress, aik or aik gyara, I and Abeer decided to divide our group into different domains in which we can work better. So, Abeer and I have taken the responsibility to work on the Documentation part such as creating content and captions for the social media platforms. Usama and Muntaha have given the responsibility for promotion and collaboration. And Wali has given the task for creating eye- catching graphics on social media platforms.

We then divided our activities for Uplifters into three phases and currently we are working on Phase 1 which is mentioned below:

Action Plan

Phase — I

This phase focuses on laying down the foundation of Uplifters. The activities involved in this phase include:

· Setting up communication channels for the organization. These include creating a Facebook page and Instagram profile.

· Ask for write ups from our followers based on their personal experiences.

· Promotion in Facebook groups and through personal references.

· Make motivational posts out of received stories and share with the consent. The choice of anonymity is left to the writer.

Phase — II

This phase is based on stepping forward to provide help. Following tasks require action to accomplish the main idea of this phase.

• Arrangements to make social media profiles always available for help by allocating shifts among members.
• Reaching out to different organizations working on mental health and establishing connections with them.
• Webinars on the awareness of mental health.
• Encouragement for breathing exercises through social media.

Phase — III

This phase reflects on our future aspirations from this project. The following proceedings are intended to be pursued after the completion of the fellowship.

• Creating a YouTube channel.
• Website development to provide medical help through professional psychologists either with negotiable fee or free of cost.

We have created online platforms for our organization on Facebook and Instagram and the links to that platforms are mentioned here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Uplifters-105454914836933

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=lbju71y97zh4&utm_content=kv5xgfn

Teamwork is really important if you are working on same goal. When different minds come together and gives ideas, then you have various options to work on any one of them and make any one of them the better.

“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.”

— Andrew Carnegie

By actively participation of whole team, we have been successfully created social media platforms and promoted our mission everywhere in our circles. To me, this is such a great achievement of my team so far.

The progress of our mega project is going good up till now, but it can be much better if we give proper time. Time management is the big challenge for all of the members right now and as a group, we have planned to cope with this problem by giving at least one hour on daily basis to the project in order to make it done successfully before time.

Moreover, our next target is to engage our followers with our mission and for this reason, we have planned to post motivational content which would gather the attention of our followers and they could relate to their problems.