From Tony Osauzo, Benin
A Mental Health Awareness conference organised by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has ended in Benin, the Edo State capital.
Organised by the Welfare and Self-Reliance Department’s Family Services unit of the church for members and communities in its West Africa Area, the conference focused on identifying factors that can contribute to Emotional Challenges, Strategies for preventing and managing the symptoms of Depression, providing support for individuals experiencing Depression and utilizing church resources to navigate feelings of Depression.
In her lecture, Mrs Veronica Efiong examined factors that lead to mental health and said half mental illness start early in life and advocated for early screening and proper intervention to mitigate the health challenge.
On his part, Dr. Olaniyi Ayilara disclosed that 8 out of 1000 teenagers suffer from Depression while 13.3 out of every 100 adults are depressed, adding that Depressed mood is not just sadness but a persistent disorder resulting to diminished or lost of interest in activities.
He said loneliness was one of the triggers of Depression among the elderly and urged children and family members of elderly people to always be in contact with them.
One of the participants, Dr Okunzuwa Osawaru, a Psychiatrist, called on government to come up policy curtail Depression and Mental Health.
“We have to create a viable environment for the citizenry, we must enunciate a matrix of policies that will sponsor the welfare of our citizens. Mental health is a spin-off of the environment, we were better than this, our current situation can actually be improved when the right tools are deployed.
“Depression is not always a clinical entity, but I believe to medicalise the issues will be too narrow because there are so many issues that impinge on the wellbeing of the people it is not just about serving medicine, just like you had me say, a person who doesn’t have the means of livelihood cannot be helped beyond the point of medicines, indeed you to have buy the medicines so for me I am very happy with the church, it is very gratifying that the church as a corporate entity with its spiritual mandate is also addressing these things so to address social issues, all social institution must be acting in synergy.
“There is a direct correlation between the economic down turn and the incidence and prevalence of not only depression but other mental illnesses. It is not well with us as a people currently, a lot of people are falling below the line, some people are sinking, some have submerged irreversibly, other churches should do similar things, it is noteworthy that a church should be concerned about things that generally secular, it is very meaningful”, he said.
Also commenting on the conference, Marian Esiape, Area Welfare Self-Reliance Mannager, said the church, aside the spiritual, also look at the temporal state of the individual.
“As a church, a spiritual and temporal side of human being is important to us, we don’t just look the spiritual, we look at the temporal state of the individual so from that, we believe that mental health is one key ting that need to be addressed because if you are mentally sound, you are able to do everything for yourself but if you are not, then there is no hope for you because you don’t have even the mind to be able to do things for yourself and so that is why mental and emotional health is a key resource that the church invests in.
“The church has made available so much to its members so that all the issues of mental health can be addressed. We provide these resources to the clergy men who are able to take care of these people. If it is beyond them, that is why we have the community resources; we do these in connection with those that have the expertise to be able handle this so that we can bring relief to our members.
“This is our third year but we are responsible for Africa West so the two other conferences were out of Nigeria and this year we are doing it in Nigeria for West Africa and so you will realize that all our members joined from several other countries in West Africa so it is an annual event, every year, participation has been increasing that shows the impact it is making”.
On his part, the President, Ikpokpan Stake of the church, Charles Ogieva Evbuomwan the conference “is going to boost the ministry because some of these our members who may going through mental health issues in whatever guise, we will be able to assist them, myself as the stake president with the bishops and then the family services representatives both at the state and ward level will be able to work with the leaders”.