With school counselors and psychologists few and far between — often serving hundreds, even thousands of students at a time — it can be difficult for young Texans to get the help they need.
Now, inspired by her own struggles, a high school student in the Texas capital city has taken matters into her own hands.
Diya Mankotia is a student at Austin’s McNeil High School and founder of Project EDSA. Her organization has partnered with the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders to bring student mental health clubs to high school and college campuses across the nation.
Mankotia spoke with Texas Standard about her own experience and the organization she founded. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: What motivated you to start this organization? You yourself were struggling with an eating disorder, but ultimately this organization expanded, right?
Diya Mankotia: Yes, for sure. I started struggling with an eating disorder back in middle school, and I don’t really remember the details. But what I do remember is that the loneliest moments I felt weren’t when I was alone, but they were in a classroom surrounded by students and teachers who didn’t know anything about my illness or how to support me.
So I started a mental health club at my school, rooted in the belief that everybody, even the individuals, as well as the people surrounding them, should have access to the support and resources they need to support each other and themselves.
I’ve kind of expanded EDSA from being just an eating disorder support club to a more inclusive space to support everybody with mental health issues. I feel like this is a need that really targets so many people, and I just try to bring that inclusive space into every environment I step into.
What sort of work does EDSA do? What kind of support do you provide to students?
So we’re partnered with the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, and they’re the leading nonprofit that works to bring free peer support groups to its audience.
So EDSA brings their support spaces into schools directly by offering school campuses support spaces, education, resources, presentations, and workshops to bring that support and awareness into the campus itself rather than trying to find it online.
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Do you have a lot of support there at McNeil High School? Do you have a lot of people involved in EDSA? How does the administration view what you’re doing?
It’s actually incredible. I wouldn’t be here without the support of the counseling department because I partnered with them to lead all of my events.
I’m planning on bringing an evidence-backed research intervention program called The Body Project, led by a Stanford professor, Dr. Eric Stice. I’m interning at his lab this summer, and so I’m going to bring his program into Round Rock ISD schools and work on implementing it.
Are there policy changes that your group is trying to advocate for here in Texas to better support students?
Yes. Specifically, we’re targeting Senate Bill 279, which is the bill that addresses mandatory teacher training for teachers to receive mental health education. This mandatory teacher training only addresses very broad topics such as depression, suicide, but surprisingly enough, they didn’t address eating disorders.
Currently, instead of ratifying a whole new bill, we’re trying to add this one line into the legislation to also include eating disorders as part of this mandatory teacher training.
It sounds like you’ve had to take a crash course in political advocacy too, no?
Yes, I have actually, because most of my work has been awareness, but I think that awareness isn’t enough. I think to really create change it has to be taken to the government and to actual policies.
And so I’ve been involved in an organization by Harvard called STRIPED, and they basically open the floor for students to be engaged in this policy work specifically regarding eating disorders.
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What’s your message for students who might be struggling with an eating disorder or some other mental health issue right now? What would you say to someone who might be feeling very alone like you did?
If I had to give one message to students, it would be to really speak up about their experiences.
I am by no means an expert in any of this, but I found that change only happened when I addressed the issue at hand rather than trying to ignore it and used this thing that weakened me as something to inspire me to lead change in that space.
So I would tell students to not be afraid or not be embarrassed about whatever struggles they are going through. Instead, try to share your challenges with others and find connection, so you can create this shared space of support, of vulnerability, and then use that power to spark change within your environments and community.
