About

Bengali Mental Health Movement first started out as an online platform aiming to destigmatize conversations about mental health and to centralize culture-specific resources for the Bengali community. BMHM was launched as an organization by two Bangladeshi-American clinical social workers from Queens and Brooklyn, Founder Tazin Banu and Co-Founder Riya Ahmed.

BMHM offered a bridge in communication for diaspora Bengalis across varying Bangla language proficiency as clinical information in English – which can often be too technical – was translated, transliterated, and rephrased to be more widely understood. This created a unique opportunity for community members to engage in stigmatized conversations more effectively with their loved ones. BMHMquickly grew and established itself as a 501c3 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. With keen awareness of the unique needs of the local Bengali population, the BMHM team is committed to fostering healing, growth, and connection through culturally-accessible programming.

What Do We Provide?

Supportive Spaces:

ALAAP is an initiative that encompasses our goal of reducing mental health stigma and increasing access to healing. While ALAAP meetings are not therapy groups, they can be therapeutic in nature because participants are able to disclose their personal experiences in a non-judgmental environment. ALAAP meetings cover an array of mental health topics, such as trauma, addiction, and depression. This space is meant to be informative while also encouraging people to bond through their shared experiences.

Resources:

Our Resources are curated to be more accessible to the community. We provide Infographics that describe various mental health experiences, translated in Bangla and English. The Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health revealed that due to the lack of bilingual Providers, almost half of Asian-Americans had low use of mental health services. Bangladeshis have one of the highest levels of linguistic isolation among all Asian American/Pacific Islander groups (Handbook of Asian American Health, 2013). Resources are sorted by mental health topic and can be used as educational material for the community. These Infosheets can also be used to understand clinical language used in healthcare settings and shed insight about one’s symptoms.

Provider Directory:

BMHM offers a Directory of Bengali/South Asian Mental Health Professionals, which allows community members to browse our compiled list of service providers across the United States. The BMHM team continuously grows and revises the Directory so that individuals have access to the most updated information. Our Directory will be live again on our website soon!