Fortis National Mental Health Program Reaches 139 Million on Josh through Association with MASH

Fortis National Mental Health Program and India’s leading short-video app, Josh, joined hands to create awareness about mental health, with a focus on reaching out to the youth. Using short video messages from mental health experts in various regional languages, this digital initiative touched the lives of millions of people across the length and breadth of the country.

The introduction campaign “In this Together” with Josh brought light to various mental health issues, when it was most crucial during the second wave of COVID. The initiative “Zindagi ko Salaam” took genesis with an approach to make conversations around suicide prevention mainstream. With the exam season coupling with COVID-19’s effect on the study schedule for many students, Fortis Mental Health came together to stitch a campaign that listened to the issues of the students via a digital survey and created videos in five languages (English, Hindi, Bangla, Tamil and Telugu) to reach a variety of audiences in the initiative “Address The Stress”.

“With the existing stigma and misinformation regarding mental health, social media can play a powerful role in reaching out to people and starting conversations about mental health. This association with Josh App and MASH Project Foundation is a positive step in that direction,” said Dr. Samir Parikh, Director, Fortis National Mental Health Program.

“Mental health issues affect the youth of our country now more than ever. The existing stigma and taboo around the topic burdens them more and prevents them from reaching out for help. Along with the Fortis National Mental Health Program and MASH Project Foundation, we at Josh are keen on using our platform and our reach to play our part in fighting the stigma and joining conversation around mental health,” said Sunder Venketraman, Head of Creator and Content Ecosystem, Josh.

This unique association reached a cumulative 139+ million users on Josh.

About Fortis National Mental Health Program:

The Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences at Fortis Healthcare is an integrated mental healthcare system comprising a multidisciplinary team of experts including psychiatrists, clinical and counselling psychologists, art and movement-based therapists, psycho-oncologists, remedial experts, psychodynamic psychotherapists, organizational behaviour psychologists and sport psychologists.

Led by Dr. Samir Parikh, Director, Fortis National Mental Health Program, it is globally one of the only multi-city multi-centric comprehensive mental health programs, with a presence in 24 centers across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Mohali, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jaipur and Udaipur. With a key focus on preventive and positive mental health, the department runs the Fortis School Mental Health Program, which is completely free of cost to schools. The Fortis Stress Helpline (8376804102) is a 24 X 7 helpline run by a multilingual team of mental health professionals in order to support individuals experiencing emotional distress.

About MASH Project Foundation:

MASH Project Foundation is an award-winning social enterprise committed to building and empowering a global community of social changemakers. It works with national and international organizations to deliver high-quality social impact through its interventions on community building, capacity development and amplifying impact through campaigns and communication solutions for the development sector.

About Josh

Josh is a made-in-India, short-video app launched in August 2020 by VerSe Innovation. It represents a confluence of India’s top 1000+ best creators, 20000 strong managed community of creators, the 10 biggest music labels, 15+ million UGC creators, best in class content creation tools, the hottest entertainment formats, and formidable user demographics. Josh has been consistently rated as the leading Indian short-video app in India on the Play store with 100 million+ downloads. Josh is currently the fastest growing and most engaged short-video app in India with over 139 million MAUs (Monthly Active Users),68 million DAUs (Daily Active Users) and 23 minutes average time spent.