A group of five young adults and about 30 volunteers planted 108 trees today. The initiative is the start of their adventure to plant more trees through a mobile application they made. Last month, the group of five created a journal app called Stellar Minds which digitalises ecotherapy. The app aims to help keep a person mentally healthy while also helping the environment.
21-year-old Jigme Tashi Namgyal first pitched the Stellar Minds idea at an international startup competition.
Afterwards, three of his friends joined him in his venture and they created the mobile app.
The app is free to download for both Android and iOS phones.
The user can select their daily emotion for the day and also write down their thoughts. Writing in the journal every day will nurture a virtual tree. When the virtual tree is fully grown, Stellar Minds will plant a real tree and nurture it in real-time.
Our biggest inspiration is our king’s desire to digitalise Bhutan and our contribution to the centre of technology in Bhutan. Moreover, there are lots of stigma surrounding mental health. People are not open about their own mental issues, so we want to create a creative community where people can be open about their own emotions and be aware of their daily emotions,” said Jigme Tashi Namgyal, the CEO of Stellar Minds.
The unique feature of this app is that as you track your mood, and write a journal in the app you get nourishing points. When it reaches the highest point, the virtual goes to the full, and the stellar mind guys plant actual trees; it is not just a mental tree you are nourishing but a physical tree,” said Nima Yonten, a user of the app.
So far, there are 100 users of the app. The team says they will be making improvements to their app based on feedback from users.
“We want to create this app in such a way it is user-centric. So what the user desires, especially in this dopamine-filled world you get, is dopamine induction from YouTube videos and then so many other features. We want to focus on creating an app which will help people to calm down take a moment to breathe and focus on causes,” said Jigme Tenzin Jamtsho, marketing officer of Stellar Minds.
The Stellar Minds app also has a feature that will notify other users to send a positive message anonymously to anyone who is feeling down.
Keeping a journal is one of the methods recommended by UNICEF to maintain daily self-care and mental well-being.
Singye Dema
Edited by Yeshi Gyaltshen
