Avishi B.

Avishi is transforming mental health care amongst youth by repositioning art as a first-line, accessible mental health intervention, particularly for neurodiverse and underserved children. Through Arth Circles, she addresses a structural gap in the health system: while mental health needs are widespread, clinical care remains scarce, expensive, stigmatized, and linguistically inaccessible. By embedding art-based psychosocial practices in schools, NGOs, and community spaces, Avishi expands mental health support beyond clinics and specialists, making emotional expression, regulation, and early support available where children already are.

Her work stands out for its clinical rigor paired with scalable community delivery. Arth Circles operates with psychologist-designed modules, ethical safeguards, and supervision frameworks, while training fellows and local facilitators to deliver sustained interventions. This model directly responds to India’s shortage of mental health professionals by building a distributed care ecosystem—where trained community actors can support early mental health needs, identify red flags, and connect children to professional care when needed. Initiatives like Saanjh, a classroom-based pre-diagnostic screening framework, push the work upstream into prevention and early detection, a critical but neglected layer of public health.

At scale, Avishi’s impact is systemic: over 6,000 individuals reached across five states, 100+ fellows trained, 30+ psychologists engaged, and art-based mental health practices embedded in 25+ institutions. More importantly, she is shifting norms—children as young as six developing emotional literacy, teachers recognizing mental health as part of learning, and communities engaging with care without stigma. Avishi is not only expanding access to mental health support; she is redefining what community mental health infrastructure can look like in low-resource settings.