Mental Health Support
Did you know, in Nepal:
-
Less than 10% of people with mental health problems are receiving professional support. 1
- Nepal’s female suicide rate is the 3rd highest in the world?
- Suicide is the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age (15-49 years) 2
- 1 in 5 children and adolescents suffer from mental illness, but there are only two child psychiatrists in Nepal!
- Nepal has 3.5 psychiatrists per million people (Norway has 480 per million) 3
Needs for mental health support
The groups that UMN works with - people living in poverty and those most neglected and marginalised - are particularly at risk of mental illness.
- Those suffering being locked in a cage
- Mental illness being blamed on a person’s misdeeds in their present life or a past life
- Some people live several days’ walk from the nearest mental health specialist. Their family often can’t afford to send someone to go with them, leaving their work on the land.
- There are few professionals trained in mental health
What we do
Our mental health work in five districts includes community intervention such as:
- identification and referral of mental health problems
- community sensitisation
- stigma-reduction activities
More stories:
How can you help?
- $20 can fund placards for a village rally addressing mental health stigmas
- $70 can educate family members of 5 people living with mental illness on care and support
- $150 can provide a refresher training for 20 village-level health volunteers
- $150 can provide seed funds for one person to start a small business
- $300 can train 1 paramedic in basic mental health services
- $500 can provide supervision for 3 trained Psychosocial Workers
Recent training and quotes
For 13 psycho-social workers and partner staff responsible for mental health support from our working areas, in response to the increasing trend of suicidal cases in our working areas, we added two extra days of training on suicide prevention to their regular supervision training.
In partnership with Mental Health promotion and suicide prevention centre we held a talk on mental health and substance use for musicians in Kathmandu, attended by 39 participants.
1 Luitel et al. 2017, Treatment gap and barriers for mental health care: A cross-sectional community survey in Nepal. PLoS ONE, 12(8)
2 Source: http://www.nhssp.org.np/NHSSP_Archives/gesi/Suicide_report_2011.pdf
3 Source: http://apps.who.int/gho/data/ for 2016