School children have been at the heart of MPower's core vision over the past few years. Our commitment has further deepened with mental health issues among children and adolescents fast emerging as a major challenge in India, as it is across the world. However, in an alarming reflection of global trends, mental health among children and adolescents has emerged as a major challenge in the country in recent years. According to a 2021 UNICEF report, one in seven of India’s adolescents gets diagnosed with a mental disorder, and 56% report high stress resulting from academic and social pressures.
This is where schools, along with families, play a crucial part. No longer just centres of traditional academic learning, today’s schools have to evolve into institutions that nurture a child’s holistic development, supporting their physical, mental, emotional, and behavioural well-being. In a bid to empower them, the Government of India has taken several commendable steps, such as the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2023, which include guidelines to promote mental health and mental health literacy among learners from the age of 3 to 18. In July 2025, the Supreme Court recognised mental health as a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution.
The intent is not the hurdle; implementation is. While physical education is part of every school curriculum, imparting psycho-social education remains a challenge due to multiple reasons: stigma, limited resources, and lack of institutional support.
It's into this void that Mpower introduced its Minds Matter (MM) Curriculum in 2020. A structured and scalable program that integrates mental health education across grades 1–12, it's designed to foster awareness, emotional resilience, empathy, and peer connectedness.
With most adult mental health problems stemming from childhood, the initiative's core motto is prevention over cure. While helping schools build a supportive mental health environment that enables early intervention, it also aims to normalise conversations around the issue in classrooms and homes.
The curriculum, designed by psychologists from Aditya Birla World Academy and Mpower, is based on two major theories propounded by renowned German-American psychoanalyst Erik Erikson: The Psychosocial Developmental Theory, which advocates age-appropriate emotional and identity development, and the Metacognition Theory, which enables better self-regulation and decision-making. It is also aligned with some of the best education frameworks in the world: WHO’s Life Skills Education Model, global research on Social Emotional Learning (SEL), NEP 2020, and NCF 2023.
Focus has also been placed on teachers’ capacity building through structured training and continuous mentoring. One of the key aspects of the curriculum is moulding educators into early identifiers of emotional and behavioural "red flags" in children. Interactive sessions are also held with parents to sensitise them towards their child’s mental health needs at home and in school.
As a solution-oriented initiative, Mind Matters has included students, educators, parents, and school leadership in its programme. The aim is to achieve comprehensive and transformative gains by eliminating mental health stigma, promoting help-seeking behaviour, and nurturing a culture of holistic well-being in our schools. Moulding today’s children into socially responsible and emotionally resilient youth, who will not only bounce back from adversities but also turn them into advantages, will shape their future, and that of the world at large.
Five years on, MM has reached out to over 50 schools across India and the Middle East, impacting more than 55,000 students and over 450 educators. At each school, the vision is to empower and enable them to run the curriculum independently and efficiently after the training.
Change can begin with one, but ultimately, it must belong to all.