By Memory Khutuliwa

Blantyre, May 16, Mana: Mental Health Users and Carers Association (Mehuca) held a training workshop in Blantyre where participants were provided with comprehensive knowledge and skills to help them advocate for a Mental Health Bill expected to improve the welfare of people with psychological and intellectual disabilities across the country.

Speaking on the sidelines of the training workshop on Thursday, Mehuca Director Memory Bismarck told Malawi News Agency that the organization started in 2012 by Scottish men who were working with College of Medicine to advocate, train and offer awareness on issues to do with people with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities.

“We noted that there is a lot of stigma and discrimination against people with psychological and intellectual disability because most people fail to understand what mental health is all about. We are here to raise awareness by defining types of mental disorders so that people should know that depression, stress and anxiety are also mental issues,” she added.

Bismarck said that there are mental health laws that were came into being in 1948 and are still in use, adding that there is need to have new laws in place to protect people with psychological and intellectual disabilities against all forms of abuse, stigma and discrimination.

“The aim of this meeting is to educate and to find ways on how we can reach out to government so that a new law must be in place so that people with psychological and intellectual disabilities should have right in accessing social services easily,” she added.

She added that Mehuca’s challenges include limited funding which hinders the organization to reach throughout the country to raise awareness on issues of mental health, adding that the organization only reaches six districts.

One of the facilitators, Enoch Chilemba, said the training was relevant as participants discussed and looked into the possible Mental Health Bill which will be introduced in Parliament which in turn should empower Mehuca to populist it.

“People with psychological and intellectual disabilities meet various challenges when accessing social services in our communities. They are vulnerable to many challenges in their daily lives, such as sexual harassment and discrimination, which leads to low self-esteem," he added.

Chilemba added that there was need to find strategies that can be put in place to eliminate or deal with issues of mental health, citing public awareness campaign as one of the strategies to deal with issues that affect people with psychological and intellectual disabilities.

One of the people with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities, Rodger Kachimbili, said they face a lot of challenges in their communities, adding that their rights are often violated such that some sections of the society fail to regard people with psychological and intellectual disabilities as human beings.

“There are a lot of people with psychological and intellectual disabilities that have limitations in accessing social services. As an organization, we intervene so that rights of these people should not be violated,” he added.

He therefore asked citizens of goodwill and civil society organizations to help engage government to push the passing of the bill so that rights of people with psychological and intellectual disabilities should be respected.