Hello,
We have been busy starting an exciting 2018 at DSO and our partner universities! This year we plan to accelerate our partner impact through local impact challenges, case competitions, and greater use of our empathy-driven design thinking and problem solving.
In this report, we feature a partnership between DSO and a mental health non-profit in India.
Thanks for your support as we aspire to continue and improve our impactful work and community of great people.
Featured Initiative
This past fall, DSO partnered with The Banyan, a mental health organization that has been an integral part of the care of for people with mental illness in Chennai since 1993. The teams consisted of 6 volunteers from DSO and several stakeholders from Banyan.
The collaboration focused on 2 primary objectives.
- Identify recommendations to improve marketing and fundraising in a manner consistent with Banyan’s core objectives and mission.
- Design website improvements that could help foster increased understanding and awareness of mental health
At the end of the collaboration, the team had a list of actionable steps to improve their marketing and fundraising strategy and a set of recommendations to revamp the organization website.
Stay tuned for updates on future DSO projects including several others in supporting the awareness of the mental health space!
Testimonials from Banyan and DSO team members:
“Thanks for all your help with the website!”
- Vandana Gopikumar, Ph.D, Co-Founder, The Banyan and The Banyan Academy of Leadership in Mental Health (BALM)
“I enjoyed working on this project because of the insightful and specialized experience of our students and our peers at Banyan. It was a wonderful learning experience for me to really understand the stigmatization and complexities associated with mental health especially in India”
– Karthik Kumar, Volunteer, Development Solutions Organization