Dr. Maria Gloria Montórfano is National Health Coordinator for the Paraguayan Red Cross (Cruz Roja Paraguaya) and was a co-facilitator at the Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergencies training in Asunción, Paraguay organized by the MHPSS Hub and Paraguayan Red Cross.
“Last year all branches of Paraguayan Red Cross represented by their health focal points, came together to discuss lines of action and agreed that mental health is one of the most urgent challenges in the country. As a result, it was decided to work on mental health and psychosocial support and the MHPSS Network was formed.
One of the key-areas of concern identified was adolescence and youth exposed to a variety of stressors and abuse including domestic, sexual and social violence, drugs, alcohol, the bombardment of social media, isolation from communities and often limited or problematic communication with parents. While these problems are of course most severe for vulnerable youth they are also factors for broader segments of young people. Many of these issues worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Across central health actors there is a consensus that the situation constitutes a mental health emergency, and we treat it as such. This acknowledgement is a big step for mental health interventions in Paraguay and a good platform to take common action.
Paraguayan Red Cross is working to influence the broader political framework but at the same time we are the direct link to the communities in need. With support of Swiss Red Cross and in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health we are working on a project called ‘safe spaces’ to mitigate mental health challenges. The idea is to ensure support for children and adolescence at ten schools strategically selected and representing the potentially must socially vulnerable areas. It is about strengthening the support capacity of local schools and communities through training of teachers and the establishment of safe spaces for students to talk about problems and difficult feelings and help them to channel and address frustrations in a constructive way. The first pilot phase will be taking place in three schools in the central district of the capital of Asunción and aims to monitor, map out and build methodology for the implementation.
On the other hand, we are also working with another vulnerable population, the elderly. We are carrying out research to understand their main problems in the communities (loneliness, abandonment, discrimination, lack of access to health care, etc.) and then develop projects based on the ‘Healthy Ageing’ methodology in various locations.
When it comes to disasters such as floods or droughts that are worsening with climate change there are of course also huge mental health implications. We have established an operative centre to coordinate during emergencies and we understand MHPSS as an integral part of all areas of emergency responses. In that sense I was happy to co-facilitate the training which confirmed that the Movement is aligned in that regard across the MHPSS Hub, regional representatives from ICRC and IFRC as well as the many Red Cross National Societies represented”.
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