‘Mental Health for All’ on World Mental Health Day

As we all learn to live with a “new normal” during the Coronavirus pandemic, our mental wellbeing has never been more important. However, the truth remains that greater investment in mental health is needed to ensure greater access for people living with mental illness.

Mental health conditions are the world’s leading cause of disability, affecting over 450 million people at any time. 80% of people with mental illness live in low or middle-income countries, where most have little or no access to treatment or support and many face extreme poverty, stigma, discrimination and abuse. 

The theme for this World Mental Health Day is Mental Health for All. At CBM, we live and breathe this mantra.

We know that, too often, people living in poverty with mental illness are seen as broken, cursed, somehow less than human. Misunderstanding, stigma and exclusion, combined with a lack of support and treatment, pulls whole families deeper into poverty.

For over 15 years, CBM has been working to improve the lives of people with mental health conditions in the worlds’ poorest places. Working in partnership with communities, health authorities and people with lived experience of mental health conditions, we improve access to mental health support and tackle the exclusion faced by people with psychosocial disabilities.

Read about some of the examples of our community mental health work below.

Providing vital support to people experiencing mental health conditions and their families

In Malawi, we’re working with the Mental Health Users and Carers’ Association (MeHUCA). Our 3-year programme is supported by Comic Relief.

Together, we’ve set up new MeHUCA groups in 5 districts. to the groups bring together people with mental health conditions and their family members to support one another, access training and support to earn a living and work together to challenge negative attitudes to mental illness in their community. Due to Covid-19 restrictions, the usual face-to-face group meetings cannot take place. To overcome this, we’ve created a Buddy System where individuals ‘buddy up’ either by phone or in person (socially distanced) to provide consistent and regular support. Find out more about our project in Malawi.

Improving access to community-based treatment by training health and community workers to identify and understand mental health conditions

Together with The Leprosy Mission Nigeria and University of Jos, we’ve recently launched a new project in Nigeria to improve mental health support for people living with skin Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) like leprosy and lymphatic filariasis. Many people living with these conditions experience poor mental wellbeing, particularly depression and anxiety, often resulting from the rejection, stigma and discrimination they face due to physical impairment.

Through the Mind Skin Link project, health workers will be trained to carry out screening for identification of depression and anxiety among those with visible signs of skin NTDs in Benue State, Nigeria. Those experiencing these conditions will be offered psychosocial support.

Learning from this project, in particular the feedback from individuals living with NTDs and local health workers, will be used to inform the World Health Organisation (WHO) in its NTD and Mental Health Manual. Find out more about our project in Nigeria.

Supporting people with psychosocial disabilities and their families to earn a living

In Nepal, CBM’s long term partner Koshish really personifies the term “leave no-one behind”. Working in areas where mental health provision is non-existent, and with individuals with a range of life limiting mental health conditions, they are making a huge difference to people living with mental illness and their families.

Through regular support from Koshish, including counselling services, medication and local self-help groups, people with mental health conditions are able to go back to work and earn a living or pursue new employment opportunities.

Bharat Thapa experienced severe depression after a serious accident with a heavy goods container. With ongoing self-help group support and medicine, he has built up a stunning farm, growing vegetables, and farming chickens and fish. “It’s difficult to talk to others about our distress, but when we meet in a group, it gives good support. It’s great to be together every month and discuss our challenges.”

Tackling stigma and discrimination, including by training and supporting people with lived experience of mental health conditions to share their stories and promote understanding in their communities

Together with Time to Change Global, we launched a new initiative in 2018 to tackle stigma and discrimination in Ghana, India, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. We’ve been working with local organisations and people with lived experience to promote understanding of mental health and challenge prejudice, to combat mental health stigma.

CBM, Time to Change Global and our partners recently launched Conversations Change Lives – a global anti-stigma toolkit (open link in new tab) – to support organisations in the Global South to combat stigma around mental health in their communities.

This toolkit was developed as part of our new initiative to tackle stigma and discrimination in Ghana, India, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. It aims to capture a snapshot of what stigma looks like in the five countries we’ve been working in and also shares some of the tools, materials, ideas & approaches that are helping to tackle stigma in those locations. Find out more about the Time to Change toolkit in our news story.

Improving access to counselling and psychological support at times of humanitarian crisis

Since August 2017, more than 800,000 Rohingya people have fled horrific violence in the northern Rakhine province of Myanmar (Burma), seeking refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh. Hundreds of thousands of women, men and children are living in tents and makeshift shelters in overcrowded refugee camps, with food and medical care in short supply.

When disasters strike, people with disabilities are often among the worst affected and the last to receive help. We are working with our long-term partner, Bangladesh’s Centre for Disability in Development (CDD), to provide urgent health care, counselling and safe spaces to some of the most vulnerable men, women and children.

Our teams go from tent to tent seeking out people in need of support, offering counselling through mobile clinics and home visits. Providing immediate mental health support, following a crisis, is vital to help people cope and reduce the chance that they will experience long-term mental health conditions.

Using our expertise and understanding to train and support other organisations to address mental health and include people with psychosocial disabilities in development and humanitarian work

CBM and Vitol Foundation are supporting Ember – a collaboration between SHM Foundation and the Mental Health Innovation Network (MHIN) – with a new initiative to support grassroots mental health organisations to sustain, strengthen, and scale up their work. As part of this initiative, twelve global mental health innovators from low and-middle income countries are being mentored to help transform their organisations so that they reach more people living with mental health conditions.

A new report from Ember reinforces the need to listen and learn from community mental health organisations when responding to crises like COVID-19. The report ‘Seven Insights into Community-Based Mental Health Responses to Covid-19 (PDF 7.58mb) provides insight into how mental health initiatives have been adapting their work to respond to new needs during the COVID-19 outbreak.

The case studies featured in the report highlight the importance of working closely with communities. Through close and trusting relationships, mental health innovators know their communities’ needs very well and have been able act and adapt quickly.

Images – 1^st: Saulos, Chair of the Mpemba Committee of the Mental Health Users and Carers’ Association (MEHUCA), and his neighbour Valeti. 2^nd: Members of a peer-support group in Malawi. 3^rd: Kirsty Smith Chief Executive CBM UK meeting Mudassar, who has lymphatic filiariasis, at his home in Nigeria. 4^th: Bharat Thapa at his farm in Nepal. 5^th: Champions in India talking about mental health. 6^th: Rohingya refugee, Shanaj, having home-based sessions with a CBM psychosocial counsellor. 7^th: Member of CBM’s partner Basic Needs Basic Rights Kenya wearing a green t-shirt with the slogan #NotOkayIsOkay.