I Dewa Ayu Dwika Puspita Dewi is a lecturer in psychology at Universitas Bali Dwipa and a co-founder of Bersama Bisa Foundation, a Bali-based NGO focused on preventing suicide, raising mental health awareness, and reducing stigma around mental health.
The foundation, composed of more than 10 marginalised communities in Bali, including people with physical and mental disabilities, terminal illnesses, HIV, and drug addiction as well as LGBTQ+ communities, carries out main projects such as Bisa Helpline and a mental health care centre for people living in Bali and other regions in Indonesia. Under Dwika’s coordination, the foundation’s work has been instrumental in improving access to mental health care services, particularly via past projects such as Love Inside Suicide Awareness (LISA) Helpline, which managed to assist more than 1,000 families in Bali to receive mental health assessments and food emergency support, in addition to over 800 people from other parts of Indonesia receiving support from its suicide prevention helpline. Dwika credits her time taking the Master of Science in Psychology of Mental Health at the University of Edinburgh for providing her with valuable skills and experiences that fostered her personal and professional developments, most notably upon volunteering at Health in Mind in Scotland, where she gained extensive training in mental health and applied suicide intervention skills. Aside from teaching and partaking in speaking engagements at mental health seminars and workshops, Dwika is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Science at the University of Missouri, Columbia.