solutions and tools

On this page we want to intro­duce impor­tant pol­i­cy papers about how to improve the sit­u­a­tion of men­tal­ly dis­abled and hand­i­capped peo­ple, as well as tools for per­form­ing the nec­es­sary changes on the prac­ti­cal site.

Solutions

A gen­er­al overview of the sit­u­a­tion of Glob­al Men­tal Health and the strate­gies that can be used to improve the sit­u­a­tion can be found in a com­pre­hen­sive arti­cle of the “Lancet Com­mis­sion on Glob­al Men­tal Health and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment” of 2018:

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(18)31612‑X.pdf

This text can be read for free, but requires reg­is­tra­tion. A non-offi­cial ver­sion can be found here:

https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:dbd7597d-11b9-4491-b48d-574caef3a9e8/download_file?safe_filename=2018_The%2BLancet%2BCommission%2Bon%2BGlobal%2BMental%2BHealth%2Band%2BSustainable%2BDevelopment_AAM.pdf&file_format=application%2Fpdf&type_of_work=Journal+article

The WHO’s cur­rent Men­tal Health Action Plan can be found here: https://www.who.int/initiatives/mental-health-action-plan-2013–2030

On 9 and 10 Octo­ber 2018 the first “Glob­al Min­is­te­r­i­al Men­tal Sum­mit” took place in Lon­don with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of experts and polit­i­cal lead­ers from numer­ous coun­tries. At the end two res­o­lu­tions were passed:

“Glob­al Dec­la­ra­tion on Achiev­ing Equal­i­ty for Men­tal Health in the 21th cen­tu­ry” and “Rec­om­men­da­tions to Ministers”

Reports of the sum­mit and the res­o­lu­tions see under: https://globalmhsummit.com/home

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The fol­low­ing UN doc­u­ment shows very clear­ly the sit­u­a­tion of Glob­al Men­tal Health, espe­cial­ly in Low and Mid­dle-Income Coun­tries, under­lines the human rights aspect and makes rec­om­men­da­tions for com­mu­ni­ty-based care:

Report of the Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the right of every­one to the enjoy­ment of the high­est attain­able stan­dard of phys­i­cal and men­tal health (Dainius Puras / Litauen, 2017)

https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GIEN/G17/076/04/PDF/G1707604.pdf?OpenElement

(Unau­torisierte) deutsche Über­set­zung der DGSP:
https://www.dgsp-ev.de/fileadmin/user_files/dgsp/pdfs/Publikationen/UN-Report_Puras_%C3%9Cbersetzung_DGSP_2017.pdf

The doc­u­ment in French:
https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G17/078/58/PDF/G1707858.pdf?OpenElement

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An arti­cle about an orig­i­nal grass­roots project in Zim­bab­we appeared in the “Neue Zürich­er Zeitung” on 22 Decem­ber 2018: “The wis­dom of grand­moth­ers”: Old­er women are trained as lay ther­a­pists, espe­cial­ly for depres­sive patients.
https://www.nzz.ch/gesellschaft/grossmuetter-die-laientherapeutinnen-von-simbabwe-ld.1443797

Human Rights Watch (HRW) start­ed togeth­er with “Christof­fel-Blind­en-Mis­sion” (cbm) a cam­paign agan­ist vio­la­tions of human rights of men­tal­ly ill peo­ple in Ghana:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/10/16/ghana-breaks-chains-mental-health

A more detailed report about the sit­u­a­tion and the cam­paign of Human Rights Watch (HRW) con­cern­ing Indone­sien:
https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/03/20/living-hell/abuses-against-people-psychosocial-disabilities-indonesia

An Ini­tia­tive of LMU Munic for the edu­ca­tion of “men­tal health work­ers” in Äthiopi­en:
http://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/94144/Psychiatrie-in-Aethiopien-Heiliges-Wasser-gegen-den-boesen-Blick

The fol­low­ing text out­lines the sit­u­a­tion in Ugan­da, Zam­bia, Ghana and South Africa and presents a very inter­est­ing mod­el try­ing to guar­an­tee the rights of the men­tal­ly ill prac­ticed in South Africa:
Crick Lund et al. / Pro­tect­ing the Rights of the Men­tal­ly Ill in Poor­ly Resourced Set­tings: Experiences
from Four African Coun­tries. In: Dud­ley, M. et al. / Men­tal Health and Human Rights. Oxford 2012.Explaining the Men­tal Health Tribunals:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_health_tribunal

About a Chain-Free Ini­tia­tive in Soma­lia
http://www.mhinnovation.net/innovations/chain-free-initiative#.VwfVvUfSyM8

 

TOOLS

NGOs work­ing in the field:

  • MDAC (Men­tal Dis­abil­i­ty Advo­ca­cy Centre)
    is an inter­na­tion­al human rights organ­i­sa­tion that uses the law to secure equal­i­ty, inclu­sion and jus­tice for peo­ple with men­tal dis­abil­i­ties world­wide. We oper­ate at the glob­al lev­el as well as region­al and domes­tic lev­els in Europe and Africa.
    MDAC is head­quar­tered in Budapest, Hun­gary and was reg­is­tered as a foun­da­tion by the Budapest Cap­i­tal Court (reg­is­tra­tion num­ber 8689) in Novem­ber 2002. The Open Soci­ety Foun­da­tions (OSF) found­ed MDAC and con­tin­ues to be one of its donors. We have par­tic­i­pa­to­ry sta­tus with the Coun­cil of Europe and is enti­tled to lodge col­lec­tive com­plaints under the Revised Euro­pean Social Char­ter. It has spe­cial con­sul­ta­tive sta­tus with ECOSOC. MDAC was long-list­ed by the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Coun­cil of Europe for its 2013 Vaclav Hav­el Euro­pean Human Rights Prize.
    http://www.mdac.org
  • Human Rights Watch
    hrw.org/de
  • CBM
    https://www.cbmuk.org.uk/what-we-do/mental-health/
  • MHIN (Men­tal Health Innvovators)
    hhttp://www.mhinnovation.net/
  • Foun­tain House
    https://www.fountainhouse.org/
  • Men­tal Health Worldwide
    Men­tal Health World­wide is a glob­al net­work of indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions ded­i­cat­ed to work togeth­er to advo­cate and increase aware­ness about men­tal health and the relat­ed issues and con­di­tions. Our man­date includes cre­at­ing and strength­en­ing men­tal health civ­il soci­ety espe­cial­ly in devel­op­ing nations. We pro­vide sup­port and infor­ma­tion for one anoth­er. Advo­ca­cy, aware­ness events, analy­ses of law and poli­cies take place to make those cur­rent­ly invis­i­ble, vis­i­ble at all lev­els of society.
    http://mentalhealthworldwide.com
  • Suryani-Insti­tut (Bali / Indonesien)
    suryani-institute.com, www.bredtmannsspuren.de
  • Anjali (West­ben­galen / Indien)
    http://www.anjalimentalhealth.org/about.php
  • Difäm — Gesund­heit in der einen Welt. Deutsches Insti­tut für Ärztliche Mis­sion e. V. ( Malawi, Indien)
    https://difaem.de
  • Inter­na­tion­al Net­work for Coop­er­a­tion in Men­tal Health / Inter­na­tionales Net­zw­erk zur Entwick­lungszusam­me­nar­beit im Bere­ich psy­chis­che Gesund­heit e.V.
    http://www.agem-ethnomedizin.de/index.php/inez.html
  • Mind­ful Change Foun­da­tion (MCF). NGO in Darm­stadt, die sich für sozialpsy­chi­a­trische Pro­jek­te in West­afri­ka einsetzt:
    www.mindful-change.org