It has been a rough year for our Zamumtima Sizawekha mental health project. University of Malawi was badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and suffered closures and heavy COVID-19 restrictions. However, what has been impressive is that our teams of dreamers have still been able to creatively ignite conversations about mental health. Using a human centered approach, they adapted to the situation and used a common online medium- WhatsApp- to adapt interventions on mental health.
Seeing how the university was hit by COVID-19, the Za pa ize si za pa ize team understood what a toll this might be taking on students. The team decided to put out posters inviting fellow students to be part of a WhatsApp group where they can share their thoughts and talk through mental health and the effects of the pandemic on students’ mental well-being.
“We had a number of students reach-out to us to be part of the group. We had our first discussion where we laid out the context of mental health and what it entails. We had group members really engage with the discussion and we laid out distinctions between things as depression and sadness. Our end goal is to have students understand that mental health is a serious issue and they should be able to seek help,” Explained Alinafe.
Alinafe and her team hopes to continue with mental health projects and building the knowledge gap about mental health among college students. They have the drive and desire to continue to grow their idea and improve the mental health and well-being of students.
Khumbo on the other hand and her Osaphweketsa Madando team were able to execute an invisible theatre act on a WhatsApp group. Through the group’s research, they had found that a key issue impacting mental health is abusive relationships- which is often not recognized as abuse, particularly if it is emotional rather than physical. The team identified a common WhatsApp group for students at the college and joined the group. She shares on how they were able to do this and what the aim of their Invisible Theatre act was:
“After we joined the group, the act began with an argument between two people who were romantically involved. Then one of the actors brought out the issue of emotional abuse in their relationship. It was a short play after which we explained what we were doing and the issue addressed. We then made a call on the group for anyone interested to join our WhatsApp group where we can discuss issues of abuse in romantic relationships and how this affects mental well-being. We had students come forward interested to learn more and discuss these issues and the WhatsApp group was created.”
Osaphweketsa Madando roughly translated means do not take mental health lightly.
Our last team of dreamers known as Konkalas are very specific in what they sought to address: depression. The team’s goal is to reduce misconceptions and stigma around depression.
Using their WhatsApp platform, Konkalas uses animated videos and poetry to share and speak about depression.
“We decided that every person on the group should take an active role to ensure good engagement. In addition to poetry and animated videos, we currently have some members working on short stories and others on producing music talking about depression,” Said Binuel of the Konkalas team.
“Our plan is to share the videos and the music which we will produce on social media so that we reach as many young people as possible. Our focus is not only on Chancellor College but even young people countrywide. We are passionate about mental health and even after this project, we will continue to raise awareness about depression,” he added.
One thing is certain for all of these dreamers; their passion and eagerness to address mental health and we hope to continue supporting them. They all have plans to do more community engagement activities about mental health next year. Currently, the COVID-19 situation has improved and we believe that this will enable these dreamers and future dreamers to execute more in-person activities. Their creativity gives us assurance that even in the face of challenges, our dreamers will always find innovative ways to implement their projects.
