On April 21, researchers, government officials, community members, and adolescents gathered in Hyderabad for a policy symposium hosted by The George Institute for Global Health India. The focus: ANUMATI 2.0, a life skills education program designed to build resilience among adolescents living in urban slums, and what it takes to make community-led mental health interventions work at scale.
The numbers behind the symposium are hard to look away from. Nearly 38 adolescents die by suicide every day in India.
Young people living in slums navigate poverty, overcrowded homes, fractured family dynamics, and a near-total absence of professional mental health support. ANUMATI 2.0 is a cluster randomized controlled trial currently running across 105 slums in Hyderabad and the Delhi NCR region, enrolling roughly 6,500 to 7,000 adolescents aged 15 to 19. The program delivers life skills education through trained community facilitators rather than clinicians, making it scalable and cost-effective in settings where therapists simply do not exist.
What made the symposium notable was who was in the room. Adolescents from the program's Adolescent Expert Advisory Group spoke about how participation had increased their awareness and helped them support peers and family members, including around suicide and addiction. Government representatives and NGOs discussed how to move from pilot programs to policy integration. The event signaled something that mental health advocates have been pushing for: that meaningful change for young people will not come from clinics alone, and that interventions need to meet adolescents where they already are.
This is one of the most promising India-specific developments in adolescent mental health this year. It offers a model that does not depend on a clinical workforce India does not have enough of, and it centers the voices of young people who are rarely consulted about their own care
