Shii Nay Mal
Shifting norms on mental health and resilience for children.
Globally, around 20% of children and adolescents have a mental health condition. Exposure to adversity at a young age is an established preventable risk factor for mental disorder. In Myanmar, this was estimated to be much higher in adolescents, even before more recent years of crises.
Bridge joined UNICEF to work on campaign strategy, brand and execution of Shii-nay-mal [I’m with you], a nationwide campaign about mental health and resilience. It aims to get young people, parents and caregivers interested in and informed about mental health and wellbeing, encourage help-seeking, positive parenting and peer support behaviours, and provide a platform for interaction and support.
With
UNICEF
Objective
Grow interest in and knowledge about mental health, encourage help-seeking, positive parenting and peer support behaviours, and provide a platform for interaction and support.
Demographic
Children, adolescents, parents and caregivers, especially in hard-to-reach, conflict-affected communities.
Types of work
Research & Evaluation, Workshops & Facilitation, Branding, Strategy, Campaigns, Storytelling, Illustration, Animation, Translation, Social Media & Media Buying.
Themes
Resilience & Mental Health, Child Protection.
Challenge
The unique polycrisis in Myanmar has exacerbated the already critical mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) challenge. In 2019, at most 5% of those needing treatment were receiving it. In 2021, proportions of probable depression and probable anxiety among reporting adults are around three fifths. For adolescents it is estimated to be worse.
Recent research has shed much more light on the correlations between poverty and mental health and evidence from randomised control trials have provided the basis of a cyclical mental health poverty trap.
Campaigning within this context faces numerous challenges: lack of referral or support services, stigma in talking about mental health, or over-self-diagnosis when social pressures make it seem inappropriate not to feel sadness, isolation or despair.
Research
Working with the UReport team, we set up online groups of young UReporters from across Myanmar, and ran FGDs looking into knowledge, attitudes and behaviours regarding mental health and resilience. We followed these with brand, name and story prototyping sessions.
Brand
The brand allows us to focus and repeat on one topic specifically and permit transfer and further adoption beyond the funding organisation.
By asking UReporters to co-create this with us, we make it more likely that the brand speaks to them in terms of language, visuals and context.
Storytelling
Stories were initially developed by the team of therapists at Marble Psychological Services, then adapted for animation in multiple languages.
Illustration & Animation
Illustration and animation creates different worlds that resonate with children and allows us to tell stories with simple language. We chose characters that many genders and ethnicities could relate to, and broad slightly fantastic versions of the country.
Execution
Animated videos cover key MHPSS concepts and behaviours tailored to specific age groups.
We adapted stories using culturally and linguistically localised influencers to deliver audio versions and model reading behaviours to caregivers.
And for each age group, seven languages (Kachin, Kayah, Sagaw Karen, Myanmar, Chin, and Shan) are covered, and stories are read by notable influencers for each language.
In Person
Picture based flipcharts of the stories, colouring books, storybooks and audio-only stories in our seven languages allowed for offline and in-person interventions.
As of November 2023:
18.6m+
people reached in Myanmar
1.6m+
engaged users
50,000+
followers
We oversaw social media distribution and community management, including media planning and managing boosting.
Check the Facebook page out here!
Digital assets and a promotional plan for distributing key MHPSS information to the various audience groups were distributed through the Internet of Good Things (IoGT) website.
