The Bengali Mental Health Movement launched online as an anonymous online platform in 2018 to address mental health in Bengali and Bangladeshi communities.

Michigan is home to a significantly large population of Bangladeshis.

Tazin Banu and Riya Ahmed work with the New York based nonprofit to expand mental health conversations in communities that struggle with stigma and cultural sensitivities.

Banu is the founder, and Ahmed is the co-founder of BMHM.

“When we started off, we were, you know, just a group of volunteers doing grassroots work, and then we realized we needed more sustainable infrastructure.”

The group created transliterated and translated documents during the pandemic. 

“We want to take these mental health concepts and information and make it again accessible to our community,” Banu says.

One of their programs is Alaap, a therapeutic peer-led group, to create safe spaces to have discussions about mental health. 

“We wanted to give individuals a safe space where they felt comfortable to at least communicate some parts of their journey,” Ahmed says.

Alaap means conversations, referring to the need for more conversations around mental health.

The nonprofit has a wide reach, including a directory which has providers from all across the world. 

“It was great to see that there are communities and professionals all over the place that, like, again, just like wanted to be a part of part of BMHM in some way,” Banu shares.

Ahmed says it’s a validating experience to be a part of this large network.

“When you do work like mental health, and in a community that might not be so encouraging to have these conversations or be on in the supporting field, it’s very validating when you see the encouragement from all over. Right, it’s really nice to see how far the reach is, and how much it might be helping individuals that might have not seen this in their own community,” Ahmed says.

The group hopes to expand services, resources and put out a community needs assessment. 

They also hope to launch a self-care initiative called Joton: Aided and Embodied Self-Care Workshops soon. It’s a monthly free workshop to remove barriers to self care.

Ahmed says they also hope to expand language services to include younger and older generations.

“Language would help, when it comes to older generation, so that is the expansion. That would be wonderful to have that in Bangla,” she says.