Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences(IHBAS) is organizing Mental Health Awareness Week from 10^th to 16^th October 2011, to promote awareness in the community about various mental health issues. The events will kickstart on World Mental Health Day (Oct 10) at Indian Medical Association House, near ITO, New Delhi with a public symposium on the theme of ‘Mental Health Empowerment’.

The symposia will begin at 3 pm with two sessions followed by press meet at 7 pm. Topic for session 1 is ‘Current status of mental health systems: How empowering are they?’ and for session 2 is ‘Mental health work outside mental health systems: Need for empowerment?. Ms Sujaya Krishna, Joint Secretary, MoHFW is the moderator of session 1 and Prof OP Kalra, Principal UCMS will moderate session 2.

Panelists include Ms Asha Menon (DLSA), Ms Achal Bhagat (Saarthak), Ms Rita Seth (Roshni), Mr Mishra (NHRC), Ms SM Chaudhary (Sudinalaya), Ms Rangashree (PHFI), Dr Harish Gupta (DMA), Dr Amod Kanth (DCPCR).