Mental health workshop for marginalized group

We have successfully completed the mental health workshop for people with disabilities and care takers for the Agent Orgent Victims living in Danang city. The workshop was organized by the close collaboration between CORMIS and VUSTA following the proposal from the CORMIS. This is the first time the mental health workshop for the marginalized group, especially the people with disabilities, was held with the collaboration among different stakeholders, from local government agency, researching, teacher from University to mental health practitioners/trainers. And the financial support was from the Government fund. 2 days were not a long time; however, it enabled the participants to understand what it means by the concept of mental health, increased their basic knowledge on mental health; had more information of the Government’s policies and programs on mental health; listened and answered directly their related concerns. Besides, they had opportunities to experience different methods for taking care their mental health (meditation, yoga, tension release exercises). We were so happy to receive so much positive feedback from the participants at the end of the workshop: “This is so meaningful workshop for us. We felt so lucky to attend this workshop. This is the place where we can share to release our sadness which was kept so long. A place that we have fun, happiness, gain more confidence, change our way of thinking for life and way of loving ourselves. The methods that we experienced are quite suitable with us. We can feel the immediate benefits after trying, for instance, less pain on our back and neck; we had better sleep last night. The knowledge we learnt on mental health in this workshop also help us to know how to talk/deal with the children at different age to encourage and not to harm them for their mental health later on in their life. We want to set up small groups in our communities, share the knowledge we learnt for more people. We want to involve more in this mental health program”. We are so grateful for the participants’ sharing and their active participation in 2 days workshop. See you all in our following activities. We are grateful for the close collaboration and dedicated support from the VUSTA, Dr Hang Phuong from the Danang Pedagogical University; the Danang trainer team of yoga, meditation from the Yellow Lotus Club; Vice Director of DoLISA, mass media in Danang, Danang DPO and Association for Agent Orgent Victims; Club of Women with disabilities from Quang Tri, Quang Ngai province and the CORMIS staff. Your amazing contribution had turned this workshop into a successful and meaningful event./.