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"Together against mental suffering stigma"

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"Together against mental suffering stigma"

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My how might we question:

How might we increase the awareness about mental illnesses in Egypt?

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My project is necessary because it can help solving an issue happening in my community which is the leakage of awareness about mental illness especially between teenagers, that makes suicide attempts increase…

We as teenagers living now have different  needs from when our parents was, we live in a more stressful world full of overwhelming things, technology development and social media platforms has increased the possibility percentage of gaining some mental diseases such as Anxiety, Depression, Trust issues and more, but blaming the victim makes it worse and make the people exposed to a serious mental illness feel that they're unbelievable even if they talk and express what they really feel, this makes them don't even think of asking for help because they're being afraid of being stigmatized and ostracized by the society, not only this, the leakage of awareness about mental health also causes the helping resources and doctors becomes scarce and it's too expensive to have a session with a therapist!
Some families refuse to take their children to a therapist when they really need even for financial or stigma problems and this makes the affected person's mental states becomes worse and may commit suicide!

The root cause of this problem

Mental health issues have been unknown and unexplained for a long time, this linked them with many myths throughout the ages as linking it with the underworld and genies and treating the mental patients as they were dangerous for the society for a long time.
The mental illness is also unseen not like some organic illnesses and it's hard to be understood by someone who doesn't have awareness or didn't go through before so, people always tend to stigmatize the patients as they can't see or even feel their illness.
But now mental illness is being more understood by science and it has been linked to biochemistry problems or sometimes some organ failures which can be seen through x-rays or other forms of rays.
All we need now is more awareness about mental health issues to clear these myths and respect the patients because they have been suffering a lot!

My project addresses or works to solve this by

Preparing a simple academic course from trusted references and resources in order to educate high and middle school students about mental illnesses through virtual workshops, so that they become aware and then encourage them to talk about what they have learned to their family and school mates so that one person can influence a lot of people around him/her.

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My first SMART Goal is

20 students will attended virtual awareness workshops about mental illnesses and psychology under the title "Together against mental suffering stigma"  that will cover some basic topics and activities to help them understand more about psychology and renounce the stigma directed at psychiatric patients.

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My second SMART Goal is

After finishing the workshops, the 20 students will be encouraged to talk and educate at least 5 family members, friends or classmates about what they have learned in the way they like (making orientations at school, distributing brochures, starting a social media page or even volunteering and helping in the future workshops or any other activity they will like to do!).

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The first step will be:

Announcing about the course so that people who are interested can apply, be contacted, able to attended the course workshops and do the activities.

Resources:

I will need to collect appropriate references, recourses and even taking online courses so that me myself be able to explain to people and having enough knowledge.

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The second step will be:

Starting the workshops sessions and activities to educate people about mental health after choosing an appropriate meeting time and platform with the participants on

Resources:

I will need a good internet access and an appropriate meeting platform to complete this step.

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The third step will be:

Finishing the workshops and encouraging the participants to start their mandatory community service project and become a part of the alumni community so that they can help in the future as facilitators (this is optional after finishing their mandatory projects).

Resources:

I will need monitoring, leadership skills, patience and passionate people to complete this step.