The Fourth Plate

Team Enact Earth, led by founder Hemavathi S Shekhar, spoke to me about the intent of the sharing circle; the connections between mental health and climate change and other related subjects. Excerpts from the interview…

What was the primary intent of the sharing circle on climate change and mental health at Manotsava 2025? 
Our intention grew from a realization we had in 2023 when we hosted a small research project on youth, climate change and mental health. Young people simply did not have spaces to talk about how climate change made them feel. Many were experiencing anxiety, grief or confusion but unable to connect these to the climate crisis. Also, this intersection is rarely discussed and falls to the bottom of the priority list in mental health conversations. 

We chose a sharing circle over a workshop as it allowed for the creation of a safe, inclusive space where people of different generations could express their emotions, listen to each other and recognize that their feelings are valid. 

We also wanted to balance the tone. Conversations about climate and mental health often lean towards fear, despair or helplessness. Our goal was to shift that to a more hopeful and supportive environment where people could share openly without being overwhelmed by doomsday narratives.

The sharing circle was also created because such spaces almost never exist. We wanted people to have a moment where they could pause, reflect and speak about what they feel – and to know they are not alone. 

Could you share more about the work of Enact Earth? How long have you all been working in this sector? What do you envision for the earth through your work? 
Enact Earth is a youth-led organisation shaped by the belief that young people have the imagination, responsibility and determination needed to build a more equitable and sustainable future. Our mission is to empower communities worldwide through education, advocacy and innovation to advance climate action, environmental justice and societal resilience. 

Our vision is a future where every individual and community is equipped with the knowledge, resources, and motivation to actively address climate change, promote environmental equity and foster resilient societies. 

Our three foundational pillars are intergenerational equity, gender justice and participatory justice. They inform our project designs and community engagement. We also follow what we call the Enact Framework that guides us to Empower, Nurture, Advocate, Collaborate and Transform. 

We’re a small team based across India. Our team’s collective experience comes from architecture, circular economy research, environmental sciences and law and policy at the national and international level. We’re also majority female-led, which influences our emphasis on inclusivity, ethics and care about how we work.

What defines us is our willingness to address overlooked themes within mainstream climate conversations. Our experiments allow us to explore intersections that many do not engage with. For example, our project Ahrva focuses on climate change and mental health – an area that receives very little attention though people are deeply affected by it. 

In India, more than 80 percent of the population lives in rural areas and are exposed to climate-related disasters. So, the scale of emotional impact is very large.

Hemavathi S Shekhar, Founder of Enact Earth

Could you elaborate on the connection between mental health and climate change?

The connection between climate change and mental health becomes very clear once we listen to people’s lived experiences and look at what research shows. Climate change affects how we think, feel, cope and relate to in the world around us.  There are four main impact pathways of the climate crisis on mental well-being:
Direct impacts through cyclones, floods, landslides and heat waves are felt as trauma, shock and fear. People lose homes, livelihoods, pets or loved ones due to natural disasters and the psychological effects include anxiety, depression, grief or long-term stress reactions. In India, more than 80 percent of the population lives in rural areas and are exposed to climate-related disasters. So, the scale of emotional impact is very large.

Indirect impacts like rising temperatures, water scarcity, poor air quality or crop failures create daily stress. Families face financial strain, uncertainty about future, food and income. There is constant worry about “what will happen next”. These pressures grow and show up as irritability, hopelessness, sleep problems, aggression or emotional exhaustion. 

Social and structural impacts like disruption of community life, culture and social networks manifest as displacement, migration, loss of land or the decline of traditional occupations, causing emotional pain called climate grief. Marginalized communities face the greatest burden because they already struggle with inequality, discrimination and lack of access to services. These collectively intensify psychological distress. 

Vicarious or anticipatory impacts reveal that even people not directly hit by a disaster feel anxious because of rising temperatures, unpredictable seasons or distressing climate news. Many young people feel eco-anxiety – worry about what the future will look like, whether they will be safe and how their lives will change.

We’ve learnt that people do feel these emotions but don’t have the space or language to talk about them. Mental health is not discussed during climate events and climate impacts are rarely discussed in mental health spaces. Most professionals are not trained to understand the lived experience of a farmer after crop loss, a coastal community after a cyclone or a young person worried about a future that feels unstable. 

Our exploratory research shows that these psychological impacts can include stress, grief, anxiety, depression, violent behaviour and even suicidal symptoms after climate events. Because of stigma, lack of services and limited awareness – people rarely receive support. 

We attempt to understand this intersection, create safe spaces for expression and build a foundation for community-led support systems. The climate crisis affects the mind just as much as it affects the environment and recognizing this connection is essential for building resilient communities.

What age groups are most affected? From whom and how are they receiving help?
Children and young people are most affected but the issue is more than just age. Young people are legally and socially vulnerable because they are still navigating the pressures of education, work, and economic insecurity without having much structural support. Children face an even higher level of risk because climate impacts disrupt their sense of safety, stability and development.

The more urgent concern is whether help is available at all. Support systems are extremely limited. India has about 0.07 psychologists for every 100,000 people with most trained professionals being concentrated in urban areas. Many do not have the training or lived experience to understand frontline communities or their conditions of poverty, loss of livelihood and exposure to repeated disasters.

In our work, we track how climate change impacts trigger or amplify other forms of harm including domestic violence and violence against children. As climate events become more frequent and severe, these stresses intensify, especially for women who carry care-giving burdens and for communities already marginalized due to caste, class or historic inequities worsened by the burden of colonial legacy. 

Therefore, we believe that the question is not simply about who is receiving help but whether the current systems are capable of offering meaningful support at all. Mental health care requires trust, continuity and cultural understanding. In many rural and vulnerable communities, people are far more comfortable speaking to someone they know than to an outside expert. This is why we focus on community led support. Ahrva is exploring how help should look, who should provide it and how it can be rooted in local realities.

Vulnerability is thus complex and equally shaped by gender, social identities and systemic inequalities. At this point, access to sustained, climate informed mental health support remains extremely rare. This is the gap we are trying to understand and address.

What are the challenges you face and how do you all overcome them?
Climate change and mental health are deeply intersectional issues. Meaningful solutions have to be community led, participatory and grounded in local realities. Unfortunately, participatory approaches are not widely practiced in India, both in the climate sector and in mental health. 

At Enact Earth, our core experience is in climate change. So, we depend on collaboration with mental health professionals to help us learn and co-create solutions. Intersectional problems need diverse perspectives and solutions must be both context specific and scalable. There is no one size fits all approach for either climate impacts or mental health.

For Ahrva, this is exactly why we’ve brought in psychology professionals on the team. While we bring climate expertise, they guide us on mental health frameworks and ethical approaches. Their involvement helps ensure that our work remains grounded, sensitive and responsible.

Another major challenge is the lack of data and accessible resources on this intersection, within India. This is why our first step under Ahrva is an exploratory study. We need to understand what currently exists, what gaps communities are facing, and what kind of support structures are actually meaningful in different contexts. In many frontline regions, mental health support is almost entirely absent, especially when people are dealing with heat waves, floods, droughts, cyclones, displacement and long term stress.

\We also face the challenge of low prioritization. Conversations about climate and mental health often get pushed aside when societies are grappling with more immediate mental health concerns. Helping people understand why this intersection matters is part of our work.

We overcome the challenges through collaboration, continuous learning and experimentation. We learn by doing. We cannot wait to become experts before we address the needs of communities. We try. We adapt. We make mistakes and refine our approaches. Our goal is to move forward together with partners and communities; to build support systems that reflect their realities, strengths and needs.

(Pic of Hemavathi S. Shekar from LinkedIn)

(Read the full story about Manotsava here)