By Loveth Asogwa,
Jela’s Development Initiative (JDI) on Wednesday 13th April, 2022, in Abuja had an inception meeting with their partners on a project titled “unburden group therapy session and advocacy for youth with disabilities and family members in Abuja and Lagos 2022”.
The project which was designed to provide access to mental health services by youngsters with disabilities is being supported by Liliane fonds through the Leprosy Mission Nigeria (TLMN).
The Founder and Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of JDI, Angela Ochu-Baiye in her speech via zoom informed that they are expecting that at end of the project, their support system for mental health issues must have reached 440 persons with disabilities in Nigeria.
Speaking further, Ochu-Baiye said that they will provide the support through what she called the “Unburden Group Therapy Sessions and Advocacy for youths with Disabilities”
She noted that the support is targeting the blind, Deaf, Persons with sickle cell, Persons with leprosy, Persons with albinism and Persons with short stature and also there is plans to extend the support to family members of persons with disabilities in Abuja and Lagos.
Ochu-Baiye also stated that the project is beyond offering therapy, there is component of talking about challenges faced by youngsters with disabilities.
Ochu-Baiye then called on the government to formulate policies to address the mental health issues especially as it affects persons with disabilities.
“Mental Health of Persons With Disabilities is important because it is estimated that 17.4 million (32.9%) adults with disabilities experience frequent mental distress” she added.
Angela Umoru, the Chief Operating officer at JDI while speaking to The Qualitative Magazine TQM, said that unburden group therapy session and advocacy for youth with disabilities and family members in Abuja and Lagos project is basically providing access to the mental health services for youths with disabilities from age 16-25, to promote their psychological wellbeing because they are excluded to access to mental health care in the society and they are often most discriminated against, so this project is an intervention to improve their access to mental health care services.
Speaking further said that they are partnering with so many organizations of persons with disabilities OPDs such as JONAPWD, AWWDI, because they are bringing a unique perspective to the project. They are the bridge between them and the beneficiaries so they will bring people who can share their stories. The media, and psychological expertise to ensure that they reach out to the people they are supposed to reach out to and to make sure that the information gets to the right people.
Finally, she said that this project will create awareness for PWDs, reduces discrimination and stigmatization among PWDs, empower them mentally and enable them share their stories to the world.
TQM reports that the project is featuring unburden group therapy sessions for PWDs, stories of PWDs from unburden, Advocacy walk and press conferences.
JDI teams engaged the participants in partners roles and responsibilities, implementation schedule, M&E of the project /mental health assessment tools, and partner communication procedures.
