Peace Channel and NEISSR marks International Youth Day 2020
Dimapur, August 13 (MExN): International Youth Day 2020 was observed by Peace Channel and NEISSR on August 12 through a webinar session with guest speakers including Rini Ghose, team leader of Serendip Guardians on mental health, Jenpu Rongmei, Chief Functionary of CAN Youth on social entrepreneur and Loreni Sophia, an advocate and Director of Community Health Initiative. The session was moderated by Vitono Haralu, Trainer and Consultant for Peace Channel.
Time to talk about mental health
Rini Ghose, team leader of Serendip Guardians in his presentation said that Serendip Guardians have been working in the ground for six years now and the scenario of mental health in the state led them to engage with children, youths, teachers and arm forces by sensitizing on the issue and building resilience in them through various workshops and models.
Ghose said that mental health is about emotional, social and psychological well being of an individual. “We need to start speaking about it and normalize this issue. It is as important as physical health but with social stigma attached to it that I would rather not be quiet and suffer alone in silence which seems to be the reality.”
The Team Leader also said that during this pandemic, there is so much mental health issue that is going around. “In the last two months, we found out that people have come forward to express by saying ‘I am not okay’ this is a positive sign and we are encouraged by people reaching out and seeking help.”
However, Ghose also maintained that there is a huge crisis in the mental health and this is just the beginning. Post COVID-19 especially with the returnees who are majority young people is facing stress and anxiety over lost of job, quarantine centre experiences of isolations and not knowing the future.
“My message is people must come forward and engage in advocating on mental health and suicide prevention measures collectively and look out for one another, starting with oneself first to be of support for the other,” Ghose requested.
‘We lack action oriented young people’
“With the theme, we need to go beyond creating problems and asking questions and become problem solvers instead. We lack action oriented young people now,” stated Jenpu Rongmei, Chief Functionary CAN Youth .
“In my 10 years of work experience on social development sector, I saw that there is lack of sharing and people working together,” he stated. The celebration of the youth day is also about journey of reflections on our failures, ups and downs in life and human stories of resilience. Young people need to think about how to response to COVID-19 and climate change. He encouraged the young people to resolve conflict inside them.
Also secondly, start talking about domestic violence, he urged. “There is a big difference between sharing the message and talking about the issue in the open. My message is simple, we need to build people connection and be a movement in itself,” he asserted.
‘Period movement in Nagaland’
Loreni Sophia, Director of Community Health Initiative shared about the latest project ‘period movement in Nagaland’.
Sophia said that during our one on one conversations with women vendors, girls in schools and young women while campaigning and sensitizing on menstruation, we came across information about women in rural areas especially that they would use old rags, tear their old worn out mekhelas, plastic sheets or even tissues and at the most in emergency crisis use leaves to wipe their periods. “Such was the real issues.”
“This kind of unhygienic practice hit me really hard. This is how the journey started for me to address menstruation issues and educate women about their periods and provide sanitary pads and also show them how to dispose it off,” she stated.
Sophia also said that she was influenced by politician Jacinda Ardern , Prime Minister of New Zealand who made schools compulsory to provide and with State of Kerala having 300 schools join the movement.
She also shared about the launching of vending machines for girls in Government Schools in Dimapur District for free and the product is cotton and made of bio degradable material and is environment friendly.
“Our dream is to spread all over Nagaland and make it available for our girls and improve the attendance in the schools for girls. My message is lets join hands together and talk about period and remove the stigma,” she encouraged.
