Wikipedia SWASTHA initiative
Wikipedia's SWASTHA (Special Wikipedia Awareness Scheme for The Healthcare Affiliates) project, which aims to provide users with authentic health-related information, has now introduced a new mental health awareness campaign for users to get adequate information on the highly important topic in Indian languages. Read on to know more about the campaign.
Wikipedia mental health awareness campaign
The mental health awareness campaign by Wikipedia SWASTHA is an effort to spread the relevant information on mental health and sensitive issues such as suicide. The initiative also tries to clear out the social myths and taboos attached to the topic and provide people with a chance to know and talk more about mental health.
"A recent Google KPMG survey indicates that 9 out of 10 people trust information conveyed in their local languages. Recent media reports about suicide prompted debates on mental health challenges, while traffic to articles on methods of suicide increased multi-fold. We hope that through wider access to credible information in Indic languages, individuals might understand their own condition and challenges better and learn to seek counsel rather than take drastic measures leading to suicide." said Abhishek Suryawanshi, Director, Wikipedia SWASTHA.
It is suggested that online traffic on Wikipedia articles on suicide-related topics saw a rise of 200% since actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s demise on June 14, 2020, in the country. Since most of the information available is either available in English or doesn't prove relevant to the Indian users, Wikipedia's initiative will provide articles to users in Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Urdu and other Indic languages.
Wikipedia SWASTHA is looking more volunteers for the same so that information on mental health reaches more and more people in India in their preferred languages.
To recall, Wikipedia SWASTHA has been working to provide people in India the relevant and important information on COVID-19 to curb the spread of Coronavirus fake news and spread more information on the ongoing crisis.
