Dheeraj Sharma, a prominent academician and leader, has initiated a wellness campaign titled "Just Laugh and Say No to Suicides". This movement highlights the urgent need to address mental health challenges faced by students in India’s premier institutions. Sharma emphasized that fostering emotional well-being is as critical as academic excellence. Through this initiative, he aims to inspire young minds to value life and seek support in times of distress.
00:00Suicides are becoming a menace in educational institutions across the country.
00:13We have witnessed students committing suicides and supposedly one of the major contributions
00:22to suicides in educational institutions is stress.
00:27Stress is an integral part of our lives and it has been faced by a number of generations prior to this generation.
00:36However, stress is taking toll in the millennials particularly because millennials are a unique generation.
00:43Millennials are people who are born in 90s which means an age group of 18 to 27.
00:52This particular age group is the first age group which is born in nuclear families.
00:58Number 2, this is the first generation which has both parents working.
01:05Number 3, this generation has extensive availability and use of technology.
01:11Now, all of these three results in lot of isolation and results in an impact on the self-esteem of this entire generation.
01:23Consequently, this stress is taking toll in the form of suicides in the millennials.
01:32At I am Rootak, we are taking all possible steps to counter this madness.
01:37We have created different forums for students to interact and discuss stress.
01:45We have liaised with the Medical College in Rootak to provide assistance in the form of counselling to our students who experience stress.
01:55I have created a platform Directors Under for students to directly interact with me and discuss their everyday problems and also if they are encountering any special situations which are contributing to stress in their lives.
02:11We have also instituted a buddy system in our institution which means students are sharing rooms.
02:20There is psychological and physical support available.
02:23Therefore, students do not get any solitary time to themselves and have support of somebody even in the dormitories for them to discuss any problems that they experience.
02:34Additionally, I believe another very important component of stress is the competitiveness of the institutions and the competitiveness of the education sector itself.
02:47Students want to do very well and become so competitive as a result of variety of opportunities that they experience in institutions like IIMS.
02:59They have so many different activities, they must learn to prioritize them.
03:06Which means students should put boundaries on when they have to close participation in some of these academic, non-academic, extracurricular, co-curricular activities.
03:20In other words, define sleep hours.
03:23Number two, diet is an important component.
03:26At IIM Gurtak we are paying special attention to the diet of the students because it has been noticed that large number of students from the time that they enter IIM and from the time that they exit gain significant amount of weight.
03:42Again, it is important that we focus on this aspect in augmenting the self-esteem of the students by working on good diet, good nutrition.
03:53Number three, physical activity is another very important component which I believe is integral to countering stress.
04:01I encourage the students to participate in as many activities in sporting activities and other physical activities on campus.
04:10For that, they must get away from the everyday routine and laugh occasionally, play sport occasionally, relax and chat, have banter with their friends.
04:24Consequently, we and IIM Gurtak are launching a campaign, just laugh, no suicides.
04:32We would encourage students to participate in regular forums where they can interact, they can laugh about the matters and don't sweat over the small stuff and focus on the larger picture.
04:47The living of life and not just struggle of life.
04:51I want to thank all the faculty and staff and students of IIM Gurtak who are assisting us in countering this menace of suicides in educational institutions.
