Psycure is a one-stop online portal for emotional and mental health solutions, that has recently won the 2022 Diana Awards. This organization was also a participant in the “New Normal Hackathon 2020” organized by Preneur Lab Youth and Innovation Trust and Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom Bangladesh. Recently in an interview, Mr. Murad Ansary, Founder of Psycure described their organization, how he came up with the idea of the organization, its impacts, achievements, and future plans.
Recently, you got recognition from the 2022 Diana Awards. So, tell us how you are feeling after this prestigious honorarium?
Murad Ansary: The feeling was really fantastic when we got this prestigious honorarium. It’s always been a challenge to work on mental health, especially in Bangladesh, as the people of this country don’t consider it positively. Actually, the recognition inspired a lot, and since the recognition was international, this gave us tons of motivation. We hope to learn more from the people who are working globally on mental health, like how they successfully perform tasks in this challenging field, how they have overcome the problems they faced, etc. Hopefully, we can do better by using this amazing networking platform.
The name of your organization is “Psycure”, so tell us about your organization.
Murad Ansary: Right now, we are focusing on three areas. Firstly, We are continuously running various campaigns such as “Unwind Mind”, “Spring Mental Awareness” and others to create awareness in Bangladesh. Secondly, for people’s self-care, we are giving different types of training. We have done 110+ training sessions so far in which almost 11,000 people have participated, including students and others. Thirdly, We provide counseling. Basically, in terms of startup counseling, we provide various types of counseling services, including “Individual Counseling,” “Couple Counselling,” “Group Counselling,” and “Employee Assistance Program” for corporate mental health care. So far, We have provided counseling sessions to almost 3,000 individuals.
As you are the founder of the organization, how did the idea of this organization come up to you?
Murad Ansary: There are actually two reasons which gave us the encouragement to start the “Psycure”.
The 1st reason is; that we have to pay at least 1000 taka on average per session if we want to get the Mental-Health service in Bangladesh. And as we have to take 4 sessions, this will be too much for the students to afford since this is a developing country and most of the people are low & middle-income earners. So that is why we have come up with a digital solution to make the cost reasonable and affordable so that we can provide mental health services to the maximum number of people in this country.
The second reason is that there are only 1000 mental health professionals in the population of 16 crores, and 90% of them live in the capital (Dhaka). Because of the unavailability of professionals, people have to wait for 1 or 2 months to get a mental health service appointment which is very frustrating and time-consuming. That’s why we have come up with this organization to ensure the availability of mental health services for all people across the country.
We all know that there are several organizations in our country nowadays that provide help with mental health. Then tell us how your organization is different from those?
Murad Ansary: Actually, we are mainly focusing on improving the availability of mental health services so that people don’t have to wait for appointments and can get the best counselor easily and quickly. Moreover, we are developing our own App which is not limited to sessions only. There will be a personal profile in this app for each individual, and the data they are importing will be continuously updated through machine learning based on the Daily Mode Tracking, Mindfulness Meditation, and daily basic information. These things will help them to improve everyday life activities. Privacy is a big issue in the case of mental health as the information of an individual is confidential and “Psycure” strictly ensures privacy security. We are also working on a live Chat facility to give emergency support. Lastly, you can say that we are trying to reach our optimal objectives while maintaining the Global Standard.
Tell us some of your other achievements and impact on society with this organization?
Murad Ansary: We have successfully trained almost eleven thousand people through our Workshops & training so far and have also been able to give counseling services to three thousand people. In terms of achievement, we achieved “Joy Bangla Youth Award 2020”, “Bangabandhu Innovation Grant Award 2021”, “Young Global Change Maker Award 2021”, and 10th place in “Youth Colab”. Recently we got the “The Diana Award 2022 award” and Research Grant from SIMcubator.
Would you mind sharing with us your future plans with this organization?
Murad Ansary: Our future plan is to expand our Mental Health service globally while maintaining the global standard so that people worldwide can access it conveniently and affordably.