A 17-year-old exploring the world.
she's
everyone.
she's
everywhere.
who is vaikhari?
Vaikhari is a Marathi mulgi who first stepped on stage at the age of five, singing in her mother tongue, and has since performed in seven Indian languages in over thirty live shows.
As a 2x founder, Vaikhari loves bringing ideas to life and helping people. A cinephile, Vaikhari finds stories everywhere - on the screen, in the people she meets, and in the traditions that have shaped her life.
Vaikhari strives to find new people and stories that make life "worth it".
Vaikhari believes being authentic in today's day and age propels you towards greater life experiences.
I advocate and work for better mental health in Indian teenagers.
I realized early on that the stigma will take decades to subside and that I needed to equip students with the fundamentals of psychotherapeutic knowledge and approaches as a part of their school education. And so, with the help of a medical college in the city, I devised a curriculum based on the intersection of cognitive and dialectical behavioral therapy and simplified nuances and practices. This gave birth to an 8-month course with not just lectures, but quizzes, competitions, and debates for a school. We narrowed our focus to self-discovery and resilience in private schools and substance abuse and emotional dependence in government schools.
We collaborated with the local government to reach out to students and use these two-hour sessions to give them mental health fundamentals and teach them coping and self-soothing techniques they could use whenever they were struggling. This was necessary because, in India, a minor usually cannot see a therapist or access mental health resources unless their parents agree. Unfortunately, most would never give that permission, so doing school-wide seminars was the best way to help teenagers struggle with their mental health.
Recognized by..
