BY DELISA THWALA
MBABANE – CANGO through the C19RM project conducted Mental Health workshops for 137 Eswatini HALT project staff and community Cadres, from all four regions of the country.
The workshops began on August 28, 2023 and ended on September 23, 2023.
The implementation of the Mental Health workshops emanated from the need for debriefing sessions for World Vision Eswatini HALT project staff and community cadres, due to the daily interactions with GBV survivors in the various communities that turn to affect them in the long run.
According to CANGO’s Communication pages, the purpose of the Mental Health workshops was to equip and project staff and community cadres to incorporate Mental Wellness as part of their daily life activities, also enlightening their knowledge on psychoeducation.
“Thus, the ability to identify, manage and be familiar with accessing Mental Health services, whenever the need arises. The key issues that were raised by the staff and cadres when working in the different communities are; difficulty in working with AGYW.”
“They do engage in income-generating projects due to different wants for quick money. Also, conflicts that arise when AGYW are empowered with money-saving schemes, due to the individual differences,” read the statement on the workshop.
Holistic Mental Health and Wellness Solutions facilitated the workshops: the facilitators; Sewele Ndzimandze, Bhekile Dlamini and Lindelwa Nxumalo.
They facilitated on: mind games, physical games, and presentations and educational sessions on; understanding Mental Health and Wellness, awareness of the common causes of stress, common signs and symptoms of stress, some adaptive stress coping ways and the common complications of untreated stress.
There were also capacity-building sessions during the workshops by the Mhlume worth group. This group shared their success stories in successfully creating money-saving schemes.
Worth noting is that the Coordinating Assembly of the Non-Governmental Organisations, (CANGO) was established in 1983 primarily as a network for NGOs working in Primary Health Care in Swaziland.
CANGO’s overall mandate as an umbrella body is to ensure a well-functioning and coordinated civil society.
