History of Indigo
"We're open to really everything," Garrison said. "We're happy to talk about that p-set too."
Midnight. December 10th. 2015. Students lined up in Harvard yard. One side had clothes, while the other had none. One side held signs, while the other held alcohol. However, for all their differences the most striking was one side had people of color and the other was mainly a sea of white.
I can’t breathe.
This was a time of heightened time of racial tensions on campus. The black lives movement was beginning to gain momentum across the nation. Every week there were stories on the news about another unarmed black man losing their life because of the perceived danger from the color of his skin. Another police officer facing no repercussions for their murders.
#blacklivesmatter
#bluelivesmatter
#alllivesmatter
The students at Harvard were witnesses. They were present. At the protests. On social media. Being at Harvard didn’t mean we were safe. It did not mean we did not feel the anguish and pain from losing members of our communities all over the United States.
Every other year Harvard releases it’s data on mental health on campus, everything from mental health service use to surveys conducted by students. Coincidentally, they would release this data only a few months after this momentous primal scream. This year’s data stood out because of the increased student demand--and clear need--for a more culturally diverse counseling staff.
From this data, the college created a task force to formulate potential solutions to address this student need. Henri Garrison, class of 2016, was a part of this task force and after this experience they would go on to create Indigo. As a small staff, they began in the spring semester of 2016, open on Saturdays and Sundays 9pm - midnight in the Adams House common space located in the basement of H Entryway. Indigo was the first of its kind. Although it’s been known for quite some time that issues such as race and socioeconomic class can affect mental health, most counseling services operate under the ideology that at the end of the day the human experience can overcome differences in background. Therefore, Harvard lacked incentive to hire people of color for counseling services. And so with Indigo, like many other initiatives, it fell on the students to create a safe space to deal with the intersectionality of mental health and identity.
Regrettably, Garrison would graduate the same semester Indigo opened. The remaining leadership, for various reasons, decided to step down over the summer. In addition, all of the founding documents and training protocols were lost when Garrison’s email became deactivated. The responsibility then fell on Aakriti Prasai, class of 2018, to pick up the pieces. Unfortunately, due to lack of staff and organization, Indigo would spend the 2016-2017 academic year unable to offer peer counseling services. Instead, they focused on regrouping, outreach, and advocacy to destigmatize mental health at the college. Towards the end of Spring 2017, Prasai found herself a co-director and the support Indigo needed to reopen its doors in the fall. That semester, Indigo participated in its first fall training and met the necessary requirements to join the other peer counseling groups. It would occupy the same Adams basement space and decided to open Monday through Thursday, 8pm-12am. At the same time, we focused outreach to other cultural and mental health groups to offer our services, i.e. discussion facilitators, panelists, or just support. However, the group still had its challenges.
With only eight members and a lack of institutional memory Indigo had many hurdles to surpass. Although the mission would stay the same, the responsibility of redefining and restructuring Indigo would fall upon the shoulders of this cohort. They had to formulate community norms, divvy up responsibilities, and make their presence known on campus. Due to these considerable tasks, Indigo did not see much usage this past fall.
However, in the spring, Indigo’s numbers would grow with fresh faces ready to continue tackling these issues. We rebranded and enhanced our publicity efforts which paid off with more usage both in the office and for events around campus. We ended the semester confident in our counselors and excited about our continued growth.
