Mental health care partners join hands to raise awareness

21 Sep 2016
21 Sep 2016

NATIONWIDE CAMPAIGN KICKS OFF

Last year for the first time, organisations from across the Western Cape came together to pool their efforts in raising awareness for mental health care during World Mental Health Month (October). Spearheaded by the Alan J Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health (CPMH), this year’s collaboration brings together mental health organisations from across the entire country to share their ideas and support one another’s activities for an even bigger campaign and an online hub where information and events are shared.

This year’s World Mental Health Day awareness campaign will kick off early with a blog series beginning on World Suicide Prevention Day on the 10th of September, followed by several high-profile events and will draw to a close at the end of October.

Throughout the coming weeks, blog posts by mental health service users, providers and researchers will be published on the campaign website, covering a great variety of mental health issues. The aim of the blog series and the campaign as a whole is to promote conversation around mental wellbeing, how to seek help and how to recognise the first signs of mental ill health in a loved one. This reflects the international theme for World Mental Health Day 2016, “Mental Health First Aid”.

In addition to offering helpful content regarding mental health online, campaign partners will be present at this year’s Hope Hike & Bike, organised by the Ithemba Foundation. The goal of the Hope Hike & Bike is to raise awareness of depression and to raise funds for academic research this field. This year the Cape Town Hope Hike & Bike will take place at Blaauwklippen Wine Farm in Stellenbosch on 2 October and the Pretoria event on the 9th at Van Gaalen’s in Skeerpoort.

Another highlight will be a mental health documentary film festival, which will be hosted by the Labia Theatre in Cape Town on World Mental Health Day (10 October). Short films and documentaries will be showcased in two programmes throughout the day and includeDoc-U-Mentally: Last Doctors Standing by Francois Wahl and Voices from the Edge by PRIME. Tickets are R40 and are available at the Labia.

Cape Mental Health will also spoil Western Cape supporters with its annual International Kite Festival in Muizenberg on the 29th and 30th of October.

We invite mental health care service users and their loved ones as well as mental health care workers and organisations to join us by sharing their stories on our blog, adding their WMHD events to our website and supporting the efforts of all our partners, as we spread the message of #DignityInMind

How to get involved

  1. Send us your blog post contribution to the email mentioned below.
  2. Let us know about mental health-related events taking place in your area and we’ll share it online.
  3. Attend the Hope Hike & Hope Bike, the documentary film festival and the Kite Festival, as well as other events advertised on the website
  4. Join the conversation online and spread awareness for mental health with the hashtag #DignityinMind.

The Alan J Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health (CPMH) grew out of a shared vision and commitment to collaboration between members of the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of Cape Town (UCT), and the Psychology Department at Stellenbosch University (SU).

Contact details

To contribute content, share an event or for press queries and interviews, email us on media@cpmh.org.za, give us a call on 021 650 2061 or visit http://bit.ly/mentalhealthsa.

This year’s initiative is possible thanks to the following partners:

Adding their voices to this year’s call for dignity in mental health, are the Perinatal Mental Health Project (PMHP) from UCT, theProgramme for Improving Mental Health Care (PRIME) from UCT, Mental Health Innovation Network Africa (MHIN Africa) from UCT,Cape Mental Health (CMH), the South African Federation for Mental Health (SAFMH), RuReSA & the Rural Mental Health Campaign (RMHC), LifeLine Western Cape, Project Khuluma, the Ithemba Foundation & the Mental Health Information Centre (MHIC).

Bush Radio is a proud media partner of the #DignityInMind Mental Health Awareness Campaign.