Our Story
Our founder, Alastair, came up with the idea behind the Mandala Campaign in 2019, after realising that the existing mental health support services were insufficient after witnessing failings first hand. Every year, 6500 people commit suicide, with the rate increasing in groups such as men and the LGBT+ community. This is just the tip of the iceberg, with many more people struggling with their mental health. This cannot continue. We currently lack easily accessible, long-term solutions for people struggling with their mental health.
On one hand, crisis hotlines aren’t ideal for giving support in the long-term. They often only provide a listening ear, rather than active support, and operators can’t fully understand the problems of users due to differences in backgrounds.
On the other hand, professional support is not always accessible because of long waiting times or affordability. Even where this is available, success is not guaranteed as it relies on an emotional connection between the professional and the patient.
Our Philosophy
Isolation and loneliness affect a large number of us in modern society. They manifest themselves in a variety of ways, not just through physical distance, but also through emotional isolation. This is because you can be surrounded by others and yet feel alone due to an inability to relate to them. Our philosophy is that isolation is a fundamental contributor towards mental distress, and that addressing this requires a strong support network consisting of people who fundamentally understand the problems we face. Therefore, we aim to offer a solution to this, by giving members an avenue to speak honestly with those who might truly understand what they are going through, and to not feel so alone.
Our Solution
The Mandala Campaign offers a route for users to talk to others who have had similar experiences through our private Facebook group. This works through a three-step system: post, comment, connect.
Connect
Importantly, this is free to access, and is available to all adults regardless of their background (for safeguarding reasons you have to be over 18 to join, though we hope to expand this in the future). We are a judgment-free organisation and we want users to feel comfortable reaching out, without fearing abuse or harassment. We achieve this through our rules of membership, as well as a zero-tolerance policy against abuse, harassment or bullying.
Outside of our core service, we also plan to offer other resources providing support on different topics, and events, building an interactive community.
Our Future
In the immediate future at Mandala, we are looking to expand and diversify our membership. This is very important to us, as it provides us with a richer pool of experiences to draw from, leading to more, as well as more accurate, matches between posters and commenters.
Ultimately, we aim to create an independent platform to improve both anonymisation and our service further. To achieve this, we aim to eventually register as a charity due to increased resources.
