A non-profit organisation named Light Up is offering trauma-informed therapy to young adults from low-income and vulnerable communities in India through its flagship programme Project Phoenix. This one-year programme provides one-to-one therapy, group exercises and life skills training to develop their social and emotional learning (SEL). Light Up aims to work with individuals who have experienced extreme inequality in childhood and are most at risk of developing mental health problems later in life. The project teaches life skills to participants, helping them to better protect themselves from mental illness and substance abuse.
Project Phoenix is aiming to break the generational cycle of trauma caused by living in marginalised communities by using the SEL training to enhance the emotional vocabulary of participants. Participants are taught how to understand, accept and move beyond their circumstances, developing constructive responses to challenging emotions. For example, students are taught effective communication strategies, time management and how to express their feelings constructively. Parents also attend some of the sessions to learn how best to help their children cope.
The programme is grounded in research which shows that people who have borne the brunt of social conditions such as caste, patriarchy and class in India are predisposed to mental health disorders and substance abuse. The one-year preventative mental health programme undertaken by Project Phoenix is one of the ways young adults in Delhi slums, children’s homes and red-light areas can take that crucial first step toward reclaiming their lives. The programme has impacted more than 76,500 individuals, and the first batch of teens to have graduated from the initiative have described it as life transforming.
Light Up was founded by Juhi Sharma in 2017 after she visited a homeless shelter in Delhi and noticed that homeless individuals had no words to express their feelings. Light Up gave SEL classes to more than 1,300 individuals to address this issue before Project Phoenix was launched in 2021. The project uses group activities including art, theatre, movement, creative writing, music and games to provide trauma-informed therapy and social-emotional learning in a way that is tailored to young people
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