Every voice counts
No diagnosis, expertise or particular language is needed to contribute.
About us
Moner Kotha মনের কথা
A global home for the words, images, objects and stories people use to make sense of the mind and heart.
Our vision
We envision a world where every way of expressing the mind and heart is heard, preserved and understood, whatever the language, culture or form it takes.
Who we are
Moner Kotha (মনের কথা, “words of the mind and heart”) is a global hub for the words, expressions, stories, images and objects people use to make sense of mental health and emotional experience.
Every culture has its own language for distress, healing and wellbeing. Some of it lives in clinical textbooks. Much more lives in everyday speech, proverbs, prayers, songs, rituals, artworks and the objects people hold onto in hard times. Much of this knowledge is passed on orally, shifts across generations, or disappears as languages and communities change.
Moner Kotha exists to preserve that knowledge, organise it, and make it a shared resource for the world. The project began with field research in Bangladesh. It now welcomes contributions from every country, language, dialect and sign language.
Our aim
We aim to build the world’s most comprehensive living archive of how people express, experience and respond to mental health across cultures—discovering what is universal in human experience and what is shaped by place, history and community.
Our objectives
From living knowledge to shared understanding
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01
Preserve
Collect and safeguard mental health–related words, idioms, proverbs, metaphors, signs and expressions from every language and culture. This includes endangered languages, oral traditions and expressions with no equivalent elsewhere.
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02
Organise
Structure this knowledge into a searchable, multilingual, interconnected dictionary. Each entry keeps its original context, meaning, regional variation and limits of interpretation, so expressions can be explored and compared across cultures without being flattened into a single definition.
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03
Connect
Create safe, non-judgmental and empathic peer spaces where people can share and discuss their experiences, learn from one another and record their journeys in their own words. These spaces are built around shared interests and experiences, not diagnoses.
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04
Visualise
Build a global visual archive of artworks, photographs, drawings and objects connected to mental health. This includes the situations, places, tools, rituals and everyday things that hold emotional meaning for people in different contexts.
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05
Share stories
Collect and share personal and community stories that show how people across the world experience distress, seek help, heal and find meaning.
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06
Understand
Generate in-depth knowledge about the cultural dynamics of mental health by asking what people share across contexts and what is shaped by culture, language, faith, history and community.
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07
Inform
Make this knowledge openly available to communities, clinicians, researchers, educators, journalists and policymakers. The goal is mental health communication, services and policies that are culturally grounded, respectful and free of stigma.
Questions we hold
01
Are there universal voices of distress and wellbeing that people everywhere share?
02
How do culture, language, faith, history and community shape how people feel and express their inner lives?
03
Do people learn and understand these expressions in the same way, or does meaning change with context?
Our principles
How we hold this work
Perspectives, not fixed definitions
No single voice speaks for a whole culture.
Empathy and respect
We protect a non-judgmental space for every experience.
Consent and privacy first
Contributions are private by default, and contributors control how their words, images and stories are used.
Community ownership
Communities review, affirm and shape the knowledge they share.
Responsible technology
We use AI only to support organisation and translation. People review every AI-assisted output.
Add what your language knows
A word, sign, image, object or story can help preserve knowledge that might otherwise be lost.