Tịnh Tâm

Loan Kim Chu is a social entrepreneur, technology strategist and wellness enthusiast. She is currently pursuing a Master in Public Administration with specializations in Management and Technology, Media & Communications (TMaC) at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). Prior to SIPA, she has worked in management consulting and global health while living in Southeast Asia. She and her teammates from SIPA are currently building Tịnh Tâm, a mental health and wellness mobile application to elevate the lives of Vietnamese youth and catalyze the wellness revolution in Vietnam. Originally born in a Thai refugee camp to Vietnamese parents, Kim Loan is a first generation immigrant and college graduate, and her dream is to bring her skills back to Vietnam to empower the next generation of youth. Kim Loan holds a BS in Business Administration from the University of Southern California, where she received a full scholarship.

3 million Vietnamese youths are suffering from common mental distress expressed by an alarming rate of suicidal attempts, substance abuse, school dropouts and lower productivity at work. Even if youths want to seek help, they are offered public “madness” institutes, inappropriate usage of antidepressants, only 0.06 mental health professionals per 100,000 people, and private therapy ranging from $50 to $60 per session. There is no existing space for common mental illness.

Thus, we created Tịnh Tâm – an app designed around Vietnamese cultural norms and values. With Tịnh Tâm, youth are able to address their distresses without judgement through confidential digital journaling, text-chat with certified wellness advocates, and a supportive online community of like-minded people.

Through Tịnh Tâm, we aim to build capacity of existing wellness enthusiasts, to promote the wellness ecosystem, to destigmatize mental illness and to strengthen youths’ well-being so they could reach their full potential.

According to the World Health Organization, 450 million people worldwide are suffering from common mental disorders, leading to prediction that 1 in 4 people will be affected by mental and neurological disorders at some points in their lives. Every 40 seconds, someone dies some suicide. For youths 15-29 years old, suidcide is a second leading cause of death. 

Alongside the development success story of Vietnam are 3 million young men and women, suffering from depression, isolation, anxiety, ADHD, and many other common mental distresses. These disorders are leading to an alarming rate of suicidal ideations, attempts and substance abuse. The fast growing economic competition puts tremendous pressure on young to outperform their peers at school and work. Being married and raising a family at a young age also contributes to the distress manifested in youths. Self-expression and feelings exploration are not part of normal cultural norms and practices. Young people are constantly being told to hide their weaknesses. Stigma from mental illnesses prevent youths to face their true feelings and emotions, for fear of being called “crazy.”

Tịnh Tâm is the first ever one-stop-shop wellness-centered mobile application, connecting Vietnamese youth to themselves and other community members at their fingertips. Through Tịnh Tâm, users are able to freely express who they are and how they feel privately, with a trained wellness advocate, or publicly on the community channel. They will also be able to acquire the tools for self-exploration and emotional processing to normalize the process of maintaining well-being and to address their personal distresses. After countless hours consulting with the Vietnamese community, we designed the free mobile application with three initial features: 

1. Digital journaling where youths get to express their emotions with words, recordings or drawings, and save their entries privately or publicly 

2. Text-chat with wellness advocates where youths get to connect with certified advocates trained by reputable psychologists for conversations, guidance, tools, and resources to help them work through a moment and strengthen their own wellbeing 

3. Online community where youths get to connected with a family of wellness enthusiasts and like-minded peers who will be there to support, uplift, and show them that they don’t have to walk on this vulnerable journey alone 

A recent UNICEF study indicated that 3 million Vietnamese youths are suffering from anxiety, depression, and common stressors without receiving the help they need. Due to the stigmatization of mental health, seeking help is oftentimes discouraged as a sign of weakness. Fortunately, with most youths feeling comfortable using their phones, and as 84% of people over 18 in Vietnam own smartphones, we can offer support at scale through technology. 

Since its inception, Tinh Tam has been designed not only FOR but WITH Vietnamese youths themselves. Through the deep dive user testing and research conducted on the ground in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh last year, we understood that there were three main barriers that we needed to address: a deep stigma around mental health, inaccessibility and high costs, and a general lack of awareness around mental health. By offering a free app with tools for self expression, empowering youth to seek support from a wellness advocate and connecting them with an online wellness community, our solution can support Vietnamese youth through difficult times. 

Through the collaboration of Vietnamese youth and network of partners, we continue to co-develop and seek feedback from the Vietnamese community at every step of the journey.

Tịnh Tâm offers an opportunity for youths suffering from common mental health distress, those who are left behind by the society due to stigma to be freely and encouragingly vulnerable with themselves and others. As the first one-stop-shop wellness application, Tịnh Tâm will normalize the practice of self-expressions through our partnerships and training a network of wellness advocates. Our work will build awareness for mental health, destigmatize mental illness, and catalyze the wellness revolution in Vietnam through shifting the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors they have that are preventing them from living a free, authentic life they deserve.  

It started from an idea that Dan, one of our co-founders pitched in our “Creating A Social Enterprise” class that actually did not originally focus specifically on mental health and wellness nor Vietnamese youth. However, having just moved from Vietnam to start graduate school and knowing that another team member, Khanh, is also Vietnamese, I suggested that we pivot to serving Vietnamese youth instead. Khanh was simultaneously discussing another project idea with Taylor around mental health in Vietnam so we all decided to team up. Through a series of desk research, 50+ interviews including a field visit in Vietnam, we learned about the issues and opportunities in mental health and wellness in Vietnam and iterated on a solution to address the needs of Vietnamese youth today. With the help of our newest team member, Martin, an experienced psychologist, we landed on an idea and prototype that ultimately won the SIPA Dean’s Challenge this past May. What we’ve learned is that there is a hunger to destigmatize mental health and wellness between Vietnamese youth and that our digital solution could not only serve Vietnamese youth at scale, but empower individuals to advocate for better Vietnamese mental health and wellness systems.

I was born in a Thai refugee camp to Vietnamese parents who were forcibly separated shortly afterward. Despite the trauma of family separation, the refugee experience, and growing up in poverty in America, I ultimately graduated USC on a full scholarship and landed a job in consulting upon graduation. However, my American dream turned into a nightmare when my family fell into homelessness, mental health issues, and near-death experiences. 

Throughout all this adversity, and understanding the Vietnamese stigma against seeking mental health support, I had to build tools and psychosocial systems for myself. However, mental health and wellness are inextricably linked to socioeconomics, culture and community support systems, and while some countries are investing in empowering their mental healthcare systems, others are continuing to stigmatize these problems. The tools I built for myself saved me several times growing up, and my dream is to build a scalable solution that enables other Vietnamese youth to support themselves and their community. My vision is for Tịnh Tâm to not only elevate the lives of others through democratizing mental health and wellness, but to serve as a catalyst for the wellness revolution in Vietnam.

I am uniquely positioned to lead the initiative for the following reasons: 

• Application of interdisciplinary skills and experiences: I would apply management consulting, global health, human centered design, wellness and MPA experiences to build an organization that will elevate the lives of millions through mental health and wellness. 

• Global health experience in Southeast Asia: I have worked at Population Services International, a global health nonprofit, working for country and global teams across several health areas. My work includes conducting human centered design studies, market development analysis and delivering health promotion strategies across a multitude of country stakeholders. 

• Connection to Vietnamese community: Vietnamese heritage runs through my blood. My passions led me to live and work in Vietnam, where I not only deepened my relationship with the Vietnamese community, but also witnessed the stigmatization and inaccessibility of mental health through my Vietnamese friends’ experiences. 

• Lived experience rising through trauma: Despite various traumas including homelessness, war, family addictions, intergenerational trauma, child abuse, gender based violence, and other stressors, I have learned how mental health and psychosocial support systems can save lives.  

• Timing and momentum: Our team recently activated a network of Vietnamese partners on the ground and won the SIPA Dean’s Challenge to further build our pilot. The Elevate Prize would enable us to fully develop the application, launch it, and hire the team of Vietnamese counselors and advocates to sustainably scale. Furthermore, because of COVID, there is a growing hunger for mental health and wellness solutions in Vietnam.  

In April, as we were nearing the final Dean’s Challenge competition deadline, the designer we had hired suddenly became unresponsive, despite not having delivered the agreed-upon branding and prototype work. The designer previously had shared that he was dealing with some personal issues and considering the additional stressors from COVID-19, I communicated these challenges with our co-founders. We ultimately decided as a team to give the designer the time he needed and to continue pushing onward towards the deadline with or without the designer.  

As a result, I took it upon myself to pull some all-nighters the weeks leading to the deadline to learn to use design applications, and build out the user experience and prototypes. While the work wasn’t up to par with what we had originally hoped, it was too late to hire another designer and we wanted to be considerate of the unprecedented times. To our surprise, the designer was inspired by our work and ultimately hopped back in to support with the final sprint, giving our prototype the professional touch it needed. This professional prototype contributed  to our success in the Dean’s Challenge, where we ultimately won first place! 

I was shocked. Mom and David, my teenage brother, were struggling to fit on a futon with their belongings in trash bags scattered across the doorless room in my aunt’s home. Dad lived in his battered construction van and ultimately fell critically ill. At that time, I was a consultant spending 70 hours a week working for global executives and sleeping in company-funded hotels every weeknight. While I had been consistently sending money home, it clearly wasn’t enough and I knew I had to rise as the head of my household in my early twenties. 

Immediately after visiting family, I moved out of my apartment in California and started to literally live out of a suitcase. On weekends, I flew back to Virginia to find both Mom and Dad homes, serve as their therapist, guide them to health centers, help David get into college, and everything in between. Every week, I shifted between these strikingly disparate lives and used the weight of my body, mind, and heart to hold these worlds together. 

Through perseverance and leading with my whole self, I ultimately pulled my family out of homelessness while continuing to grow professionally, ultimately pivoting my career towards global health. 

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The first thing that makes us unique is our fire and commitment in revolutionizing the mental well-being landscape of Vietnam. Not only are we offering free support and tools for youths to deal with their mental health distress, we are capitalizing on the existing power of wellness enthusiasts in Vietnam and offering them training and a space to support their fellow community members. Our solution is innovative because no one else in Vietnam is offering a one-stop solution at the tip of the fingers. Certainly, no one else is doing it for free. Our solution is the very first wellness app in Vietnamese, designed by Vietnamese, developed by Vietnamese, and for Vietnamese. We are amplifying Vietnamese talent to support the Vietanmese community themselves. 

Our work is disruptive because we are calling on young people to really tap into the deepest version of themselves, to be vulnerable, to be bold, so that self-expression can be normalized, so that mental illness can be destigmatized, so that youths can freely live a meaningful and healthy mental life. 

If we support the Vietnamese youth through the provision of accessible, affordable, and culturally-relevant wellness resources, wellness community, and on-demand, casual text-based therapy, then Vietnamese youth will become more resilient and capable of self-expression, creating a national culture that destigmatizes seeking help and care for distress and mental health challenges while building the capacity of Vietnam’s mental health and wellness sector.

INPUTS/ ACTIVITIES

• Mobile app technology

• Text-based therapy and volunteer counselors

• Training and supervision program for volunteer counselors

• Self-reflection tools / services

• Digital wellness community

• Self-expression tools & prompts
  
  

OUTPUTS

• Trained volunteers providing text-based counseling

• Volunteer quality ensured by permanent supervision

• Text-based therapy engagements

• Digital community activity

• Self-reflection actions undertaken (on app)

• Use of Tịnh Tâm’s suite of tools
  
  

OUTCOMES

• Vietnamese users find Tinh Tam a useful, regular “friend” tool

• Coaches equipped to support youth well-being

• Increased comfort in self-expression amongst Vietnamese youth

• Continued engagement in self-reflection tools, digital community, and text-based therapy (when needed)

• Increased # of wellness advocates in Vietnam

• Building mental health and wellness capacity in Vietnam

• Increased accessibility to wellness resources in Vietnam
  
  

IMPACT

• Lower indicators of mental distress amongst youth in Vietnam

• Continued capacity building in the therapeutic / wellness space in Vietnam

• Decreased youth suicide rate

• Greater supply of mental health professionals in Vietnam

• Destigmatizing expression of mental health concerns / wellness concerns within Vietnam

Given the fact that Tịnh Tâm is still under the development phase, we currently are not serving any active users at the moment. Realistically, we won’t start our serving until the end of the year because we want to continue testing, piloting and refining the solution before a full launch to gain trust and attract users. By the end of the first year of operations we hope to serve ~250,000 users at a cost of $1.01 per user, ~770,000 users in year two at a cost of $0.48 per user, and ~1,500,000 users at a cost of $0.39 per user. We hope to achieve economies of scale by then and expand to additional features of the app. 

While our app currently doesn’t serve any users at the moment, we have relationships with key partners on the ground such as such as Fulbright University in Vietnam, the Yen Project, Vietnam’s Global Shapers Community, the Wintercerig Project and other schools/NGOs, resulting in an extensive community we can directly meaningfully impact. 

With the remainder of 2020, Tinh Tam will be developing a functional app to pilot with users in Vietnam. We’re in the process of hiring designers, developers, a program manager, program coordinator, and wellness enthusiasts in Vietnam. A year from now, all our co-founders will have graduated from Columbia SIPA and we aim to have at least 1-2 co-founders leading the efforts directly in Vietnam. 

We aim to reach the following number of users over the next 3 years, supporting them with digital journaling, wellness text chat therapy and an online community. 

Users:

• Year 1: 253,645

• Year 2: 768,544

• Year 3: 1,552,460

Not only will we be supporting Vietnamese users, but we aim to train mental health and wellness advocates so they can serve their fellow Vietnamese community through the text-chat feature. These wellness advocates would be supervised by licensed therapists, thus creating stepping stones for wellness enthusiasts all over Vietnam. 

Wellness Advocates: 

• Year 1: 523

• Year 2: 1,569

• Year 3: 3,139

In 5 years, Tinh Tam will have won the hearts and minds of Vietnamese, from young to old, we would have been recognized as THE catalyst for the mental wellbeing revolution in Vietnam. Furthermore, we hope that it will help to destigmatize mental health and wellness. When someone seeks support for their own mental wellbeing, it will be celebrated rather than discouraged. While our expertise and passion starts in Vietnam, we also have aspirations to spread this across Southeast Asia and the world!

Funding: As a newly established NGO, funding will continue to be one of the main barriers for us to accomplish our goals. 

Bureaucracy: Operating in Vietnam under the Vietnamese Government will not be easy. We already foresee several bureaucratic difficulties to establish the organization in Vietnam. 

Trust & Sensitivity: Given the vulnerability of the population and the sensitivity of our work, we also foresee a major barrier in gaining trust and confidence for Vietnamese youths to utilize our app. 

Lack of Supply: An additional barrier we anticipate is not having enough wellness advocates and licensed therapists to supply for the growing demand of users. 

Funding: With the mental health continuing to be recognized as one of the leading problems facing humanity, we truly believe we will be able to find funders who would support the tremendous impact of our work. 

Bureaucracy: We have already started to prioritize developing relationships with Governmental offices in Vietnam, especially the Ministry of Health. This year, not only will we plan on meeting with Vietnamese officials in person, we also plan on asking our reputable network of partners on the ground to vouch for our legitimacy and impact, and are continuing to build more relationships. 

Trust & Sensitivity: We’re working with trained psychologists in Vietnam and abroad to develop quality tools, resources and prevention strategies. We will ensure the privacy of our users through encryption and we will make it known to users that their content and conversations are safe with us. To  prevent cyber-bullying on the online community avenue, we plan on incorporating machine learning to help us flag inappropriate and negative content to be removed immediately. 

Lack of Supply: The lack of expertise is why we need to start catalyzing the wellness revolution now. We plan on targeting wellness enthusiasts in hopes of upskilling and inspiring them to pursue work in this field. We will ensure that they will not only give, but will also receive the benefits of being our advocates, be it leadership skills or practical experiences that will prepare them for future work. Furthermore, we will employ trained counselors to supervise and provide guidance. 

In Vietnam, our cornerstone partners are the Yen Project, the Global Shapers Community, Fulbright University, and Wintercereaig Project to help us pilot the product on the ground. We also have started building relationships with other schools and universities and aim to expand our network of partners over the course of the year. Over half of our board of advisors are from Vietnam from nonprofits, schools, and the private sector. 

In the US, we have won the Columbia SIPA Dean’s Challenge where we are receiving guidance from a team of advisors. In addition, we are currently a part of the Columbia Start-Up Lab where we are receiving mentorship from experts and professionals in the social entrepreneurship field. 

After several rounds of discussion and consultation with social entrepreneurs, impact investors, digital health experts, and business professors, we have decided for Tịnh Tâm to be an nonprofit organization mostly due to our core mission of providing affordable and accessible wellness support to youths. By being an NGO, we believe Tịnh Tâm will be able to better showcase our commitment and advocate for a revolution of the mental health landscape in Vietnam. 

Aside from startup and development expenses, the bulk of our operational expenses will be to train the team of volunteer wellness advocates, hire licenced supervisors to oversee their work, and app maintenance /further developments. The Vietnamese community not only needs our services but by training wellness advocates, we hope to elevate their status and ultimately inspire them to pursue further work in the field. This would support the supply-side issues of mental health and wellness in Vietnam.  

As an NGO, we will continue to seek grants and donations from private donors and foundations. For example, this summer, we are also seeking funding from the Grand Challenges Canada and Columbia Business School’s Tamer Fund for Social Ventures. After 3 years when we are able to prove our impact, we are planning on reaching out to the Vietnamese Government for a potential partnership, noting how the technology could be scaled and integrated into the current mental health public interventions. In addition, we foresee a potential in a strategic partnership with the science community to offer insights from our intervention to help the community further understand this sector, especially in Vietnam. Lastly, through several recommendations of business professionals, we are assessing the potential to sell wellness products to larger companies as a potential revenue source in future years. 

Columbia University SIPA Dean’s Challenge: $28,000 

In total, we are seeking $276,458 to help us achieve our goal for Year 1 and we hope to raise this fund by the end of September 2020. This amount will come in from grants we apply for. These funds will help us hire designers, developers, an operational team on the ground, Vietnamese psychologists and train a team of wellness advocates to get this application launched. 

We estimate the expense for 2020 will be $276,458 and have a business model excel spreadsheet to share upon request. 

The first goal of our Elevate Prize application is for us to share our story with the Selection Committee, because we are fired up, we are excited about this innovation, we believe in the impact of the innovation, and we want you all to know what all we have been up to. Being selected as one of the winners of The Elevate Prize will help us put our name out there, will help us seek even more support from like-minded people not only in the US but also worldwide. 

Winning The Elevate Prize will definitely help us cover the cost of Year 1, which will help us turn this innovation into a tangible reality so that Vietnamese youths can start their own journey of self-expression and self-acceptance, so that we can contribute to helping reducing the number of suicidal attempts and substance abuse rate, so that youths can start living a healthier, stronger mental life. 

Lastly, we are excited to be a part of the MIT Solve Community, to be a part of a strong support system where, to be guided and coached by experienced professionals in the field, and to also support other participants in the cohort with our own expertise and skill sets. 

We know Tinh Tam would not be a reality without the support of strategic partners. Through the MIT Elevate Prize network, we hope to meet with potential board members and advisors ideally whose work has focused on the mental health and wellness space in low-middle income countries. In addition, we hope to seek coaching and mentorship on future business models we are thinking of. Lastly, being selected as one of MIT Evaluate Prize winners would mean that the world will know of our name, Vietnamese youths will know of this revolution.

International NGOs: UNICEF, Save the Children, and World Vision Vietnam - We’d like to pitch Tịnh Tâm to these organizations for additional support. In fact, we have already started communicating with officials at these leading organizations and we plan on discussing further with them this year.  

Governmental Offices: Vietnamese Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and Training, Ministry of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs - We need to gain trust and support from the Government. These partners will not only help ease the bureaucratic difficulties we forsee as being an American NGO operating in Vietnam, they can also help us further recruit Wellness advocates and psychologists to ensure the solution is culturally sensitive. 

Vientamese NGOs/Youth Networks: Yen Project, Fulbright University, Winteceraig Project, PsyMate, Heal Inn - These are the youth communities we have already developed a relationship with. They are at the forefront of guiding us through the app development process by helping us test the prototypes and exploring the user experience. They are also a crucial asset of our wellness advocate training program as some of them will be the advocates themselves and they have expressed interest in helping us find more people to join the program.

Columbia University: Columbia Start-Up Lab, Teachers College’s Global Mental Health Lab - These partners will help us guide us to refine our business model and further explore frameworks and best practices in the mental health space especially in the low-middle income countries.