UnityMind

What is UnityMind?

UnityMind is a nonprofit organization focusing around spreading mental health awareness to underprivileged communities and racial minorities around the world. While UnityMind’s focus may be around mental health, it also aims to provide general life resources to people around the world and help out in any way possible. With the goal in mind, UnityMind has planned and worked on a number of programs to achieve their final vision. Around the world, UnityMind has noticed and identified a growing stigma and ignorance towards mental health struggles, especially among students, especially in other third world countries where the generally accepted mindset is nonstop hardwork in order to support families. But while young students put in immeasurable efforts to support their loved ones or make them proud, the struggles they must overcome aren’t accepted or helped but shamed instead. UnityMind is committed to changing the stigma in other countries around struggling teens and breaking out of constant shame into welcoming and embracing arms. For those who aren’t able to receive such help, it becomes a growing issue as life progresses and they grow up and if they aren’t lucky enough, on top of stressing parents, peers, and mentors, to learn how to relieve themselves, the issue becomes ever more stressing and solving their struggles becomes ever more harder. 

UnityMind has already developed and begun developing numerous programs to help close the gap in mental health awareness that include an app that holds a majority of the programs UnityMind hopes to extend to students. With the app, some features would include peer-to-peer video call sessions, similar to therapy, allowing for struggling students to find support and connect with others from around the world; wellness programs such as mental health exercises, time and life management skill, and personal growth techniques; a team of support staff that help in areas inside and outside of mental health including lifestyle coaches, financial advisors, and academic mentors; a real time mood mapping program able to track users’ emotions in real time and provide customized advice and references; and more with advanced technology including features such as AI chat boxes and other AI applications. On top of the numerous programs, UnityMind also maintains a commitment to inclusivity and pay active attention to the difference of cultures of its members and promote cultural sensitivity. By doing so, UnityMind integrates all the members from across the world to share their perspectives on their own communities, their culture, their lifestyle, but also their language. Through this learning process, UnityMind aims to be able to customize their services to the particular needs and familiarities of different peoples from different cultures and truly reach a state of total inclusivity.

Meet the Founder: Shayna Singh

Shayna Singh is the Founder of UnityMind. Coming from Indian descent herself, Shayna has experienced the pressures of intense academic accomplishment and arrays of extracurricular commitment. During the COVID-19 years, the internal conflicts hit a pinnacle and with no ability for her to reach out to friends and relax for a day, Shayna’s hope for a strong inclusive and accepting community sparked. While her parents gratefully were supportive, after reemerging after lockdown, she heard from countless friends of their struggles and sadnesses during their time without friends and something without the supportive and assuring parents Shayna did. The observations led to a realization, leading her to found UnityMind. Through her program, she takes a holistic approach providing a wide range of resources and considerations to ensure any need is available at any time. And so that any person could find safety and assurance no matter their story or background and especially so if they never had the same opportunities or caring circle as she did. 

Future Outlook and Expansion

Shayna already has planned numerous ways to expand her platform. While she works hard to intertwine resources and outreach into her local community at Princeton, NJ, Shayna has extended invites to other friends in other states across the US including Texas to start chapters and spread her message. On top of this, Shayna has pursued increased outreach to other underprivileged communities in Africa and India and has secured a number of partnerships with organizations based outside the US. Her most advanced partnership will be with an India based nonprofit, called Teenvisor, that aims to help students connect with professionals and secure them internships or other opportunities. By partnering with Teenvisor, Shayna recognizes the struggles and pressures felt by students in India to succeed and accomplish and hopes to alleviate the stress and make the process more bearable and supported for those students. With her partnership, Shayna and her team will hold online presentations in conjunction with Teenvisor to talk about life management, de-stressing techniques, and mental health advice in general. 

UnityMind’s Student Opportunities

Shayna also has gone to great lengths to organize her organization into a sophisticated and thorough structure in order to tackle each and every aspect of her plan. For one, Shayna plans to divide and dedicate parts of her team to selective regions in order to learn about their cultural nuances and incorporate the cultural sensitivity aspects and customization through each team’s experiences, observations, and discoveries. Her team is also made up of high school students engaging in parts of the organization's operations including app development and marketing. On top of that, Shayna has already developed an internship program for other students to get involved in one of the three teams that Shayna has structured. Interns may be a part of the App and Web Development and Design Team, which offers students interested in computer science or graphic design to take roles such as app coding, AI development, website development, and website design. Another part of the organization students can join is the Outreach Team that offers roles in public speaking, media management, outreach expansion, and marketing. Finally, interns may join the Writing and Research Team that allows interns to write blogs and articles, research information regarding sciences, the mental health phenomena, healthcare, and social status as well. While Shayna hopes that she can help bridge the gap in mental healthcare and awareness across the world, she hopes that more high school students will become involved by spreading her message through outreach or starting a chapter themselves or joining her team and offering a hand. Either way, Shayna encourages students to reach out about her openings and help improve the stance on mental health in the world!