WFMH REGIONAL REPORTS FROM THE YEAR 2000 ANNUAL REPORT (Last Updated On: ) African Regional Council for Mental Health The African Regional Council (ARC) maintains an office in Lusaka, Zambia. It is chaired by Isaac Mwendapole, a long-standing Federation supporter and former Board member, who works in close consultation with the Federation’s Regional Vice President, Shona Sturgeon (South Africa). The ARC has a three-year grant from the Canadian International Development Agency, in partnership with the Canadian Mental Health Association, for “Project MHASISA” (Mental Health Action Strategies in Southern Africa). The purpose is to strengthen the Regional Council and three of its members, the Mental Health Association of Zambia, the South African Federation for Mental Health, and the Zimbabwe National Association for Mental Health. All of the member organizations face big challenges in raising local interest in mental health questions and in networking among poor populations, across large areas, and with inadequate communications. The award of the grant was announced late in 1999, and implementation began last year. Edward J. Pennington, general director of the Canadian Mental Health Association, visited all of the African partners in April to review goals and reporting Participants at the ceremony on 11 September 2000 at the Canadian High Commission in Lusaka, Zambia, to launch Project MHASISA. requirements. The project was officially launched with a ceremony at the Canadian High Commission in Lusaka, Zambia, on 1 1 September. This occasion was followed immediately by a two-day strategic planning session led by a facilitator, and then by an ARC Board meeting (the first formal Board meeting since October 1994). Those attending, who included six of the founding ARC Board members, came from Kenya, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. During the meeting the Council adopted a new constitution, and also presented a pro-forma constitution which could be used as a model for groups wanting to start mental health associations. The Regional Council and the three partner mental health associations will design training programs and strengthen community development work, which has among its goals encouraging consumer/user involvement. They aim to improve their coordination as a group, and would like to hold a regional conference in Uganda to further an educational agenda. In December two ARC Board members, Regional Vice President Shona Sturgeon and Elizabeth Matare, Executive Director of the Zimbabwe Mental Health Association, attended the Promotion and Prevention Conference in Atlanta, USA, where they were able to brief Federation representatives (including Edward Pennington) about current developments. Planning for the Canadian-sponsored project continued at another ARC Board meeting in Harare, Zimbabwe in February 2001. World Mental Health Day is growing in importance as a public education tool, with encouragement from the WHO Regional Office in Zimbabwe and from ARC leaders. Programs were arranged in Botswana, Kenya, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The program at the Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya deserves special mention. Contact: African Regional Council for Mental Health P.O.Box 50209, Lusaka, Zambia Fax: 260 5 224 585 Email: [email protected] Eastern Mediterranean Regional Council The Council continues to have a strong interest in programs for the prevention of substance abuse (see p. 11 ). In February 2000 WFMH President Ahmed El Azayem attended the Third Expert Group Meeting organized by the Organization of African Unity in Algiers to develop a plan of action on drug abuse and illicit trafficking in drugs in Africa. The meeting was also attended by Mamdouh Jabr (Palestinian Authority), a WFMH Board member. In March the Eastern Mediterranean Regional Council co-sponsored an International Symposium at Aden University in Yemen. The Symposium was organized by a committee led by Board member Hassan Kassim Khan, President of the Yemen Psychological Association, to celebrate the Association’s 10th anniversary. Former Secretary General Eugene B. Brody and Dr. Henry David attended, as did Dr. Leila Dane, co-chair of the Committee on Trauma Victims in the Middle East, and Dr. Madeleine Riviere, WFMH’s representative to UNESCO. In April many Board members of the World Federation took part in the Third International Conference for Social Development organised by Kuwait’s Social Development Office. The Chairman of the Social Development Office, Basheer al Rashidi, joined the Federation’s Board in 1999 and invited Board members to contribute papers for the April conference in their areas of international expertise. This resulted in a program which brought together contributors from the Gulf region, by Josee Van Remoortel, assisted by Mary Van Dievel and project officer Nathalie Moyersoen. A major concern in 2000 was the newly published European Commission Public Health Framework Programme. So far, health is a policy field where the member states have been particularly hesitant to allow the European Union to intervene. On 27 March 2000 the European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, David Byrne, met with Aart-Jan Vrijlandt, Josee Van Remoortel and John Henderson for a discussion of the role of NGOs within the proposed Framework. The three MHE representatives attended a meeting for the European networks on mental health at the Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection on 19 April on “Mental Health Priorities in the New Public Health Programme.” Human Rights international experts who had done research on psycho-social problems in Kuwait after the 1990-1991 occupation by Iraq, and the Federation group which provided broad geographic diversity. The general focus was on crisis intervention after disasters, posttraumatic stress disorders, and ways to provide public education about mental health. Dr. Basheer and his staff arranged for a WFMH Board meeting to take place in conjunction with the conference. In October World Mental Health Day programs were held in various countries of the Region, and Egypt as usual presented a series of events throughout the entire month. Toward the end of the year the Regional Council began collaboration with WHO’s Regional Office in Cairo for a conference held in April 2001 to mark WHO’s World Health Day focusing on mental health. This provided an opportunity to enhance the Council’s network in the region and in Egypt itself. The Egyptian Minister of Health and Population, Dr. Ismail Salaam, sponsored the Cairo conference, which was titled “From Exclusion to Systems of Mental Health Care.” Contact: Eastern Mediterranean Regional Council P.O.Box 8180 Nasr City, Cairo, Egypt Tel: 202 401 3981 Fax: 202 260 0541 Email: [email protected] Mental Health Europe Mental Health Europe, with some 70 member organizations, is WFMH’s European Regional Council. Its president is Aart-Jan Vrijlandt, who is also the Federation’s Regional Vice President. The Secretariat in Brussels is led Human Rights The Council of Europe Working Party on psychiatry and human rights has drafted a White Paper on the protection of human rights and dignity of people suffering from mental disorders, especially those placed as involuntary patients in psychiatric institutions. The Working Party is now considering the preparation of guidelines to be included in a new legal instrument of the Council of Europe. MHE reviewed issues with its members and prepared a position paper for the consultation process. Social Exclusion Social exclusion and poverty received special attention at the Lisbon Summit of the European Union, and MHE took advantage of this momentum to start a project in four countries on the issue of social exclusion and how to overcome it. The study has been completed, and its results were synthesized into guidelines published early in 2001. Another recent MHE project, “To Live in Health and Dignity,” aimed to identify practices for providing practical care for disadvantaged homeless people with severe psychological difficulties. Ten cities were involved. Many examples were collected about ways volunteers and professionals can work together to bridge the gap between the “inside” world of medical and social institutions and the “outside” world of streets, railway stations and temporary shelters where homeless people live. The study noted the central role of private welfare and charity organizations. Contact: Mental Health Europe Boulevard Clovis 7 B-1000 Brussels, Belgium Tel: 32 2 280 0468 Fax: 32 2 280 1604 Email: [email protected] Outreach to Kosovo WFMH Board member Knud Jensen chairs the international committee of the Danish Mental Health Association, SIND, which developed a project in 2000 to help the mentally ill in Kosovo. SIND has also been active in supporting projects for the mentally ill in Uganda. Regional Council for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean The Regional Vice President is Federico Puente. He was instrumental in founding SAPTEL (Sistema Nacional de Apoyo Psicol6gico por Telefono), a telephone counseling service, in 1992. Since then 200,000 calls have been answered and an extensive training program for psychologist counsellors has been developed. SAPTEL is the main activity of the WFMH Regional Council for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, and Board member-at-large Andres Gaitan is also closely involved with it. The project is supported by many universities, the Mexican Red Cross, the Health Ministry, the City Government and Finance Ministry, and the Social Security Institute. A celebration to mark SAPTEL’s achievements was held on 12 October 2000, and a new telephone support service for the southern state of Chiapas was introduced. A major expansion of SAPTEL to other parts of the country is planned for 2001. Contact: Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean Regional Council Postal 22-421 Tlalpan Mexico DF, Mexico Tel: 52 5 513 1334 Fax: 52 5 513 1214 North America The biennial World Congress, the World Assembly for Mental Health, will take place in Vancouver, Canada, on 22-27 July 2001. The theme is “Respecting Diversity in Mental Health in a Changing World.” Preparations for this event were a central activity in 2000 under the leadership of Chunilal Roy of Vancouver, chair of the Organizing Committee, working in close consultation with Secretary General Marten deVries. Prof. Roy and his colleagues developed a strong program with a distinct Asian component to reflect Vancouver’s position as a Pacific Rim city. Board member Edward Pennington, General Director of the Canadian Mental Health Association based in Toronto, was a member of the planning group which was successful in securing the support of many Canadian organizations for the event. The Scientific Program Committee headed by Lakshmi N.Yatham arranged most of the plenaries and symposia before the end of the year. Planning intensified in the following months with the submission of abstracts and completion of the final program for what will be the Federation’s major event in 2001. A special meeting for the Federation’s mental health association member organizations has been arranged before the opening of the Assembly on 22 July. This year it is hosted by the Canadian Mental Health Association’s National Consumer Advisory Council and takes the form of an international roundtable on consumer participation in mental health associations. Last year’s observance of World Mental Health Day in North America was led by the energetic efforts of the Canadian Business and Economic Roundtable on Mental Health led by Bill Wilkerson. Events were held around the country, with a three-day central conference in Calgary, Alberta, on the impact of mental illness in workplace and community. Board member Sylvia Caras was selected to join the new nine-member Consumer/Survivor Subcommittee of the US Center for Mental Health Services National Advisory Council. The Subcommittee’s role is to ensure that consumers’ views are considered in the development of policy. Oceania The Regional Vice President for Oceania is Anthony Fowke, who is the Board’s only member from the legal profession and its only representative of carers. He is the Vice President of the Australian National Association for Mental Health. Janet Meagher is a Board member-at large and consumers’ representative, working as coordinator at the office of the New South Wales Consumer Advisory Group. Both encourage collaboration between consumers and carers when appropriate, with the goal of exerting pressure to raise standards of care in Australia. Max Abbott, the Federation’s Honorary Secretary, is Dean of Health Studies at Auckland University in New Zealand and is particularly concerned with issues of health care training. The Region is already engaged in planning for the 2003 World Congress, to be held in Melbourne, Australia on 23-28 February. This Congress follows the Vancouver conference by only eighteen months, requiring an exceptional effort from the organizing group led by Prof. Graham Burrows and Megan McQueenie, Executive Director of the Mental Health Foundation of Australia. World Mental Health Day continues to grow in importance in both Australia and New Zealand. The Mental Health Council of Australia was given a contract by the Federal Government to organize a nationwide campaign which was supported by 80 organizations and involved employers and employees as well as the mental health sector. In New Zealand the Health Funding Authority’s National Project to Counter Stigma and Discrimination also developed a broad-based network of organizations. The National Project was invited to bring its well-designed World Mental Health Day campaign materials (slogans, “Like Minds, Like Mine” and “Mental Health is Your Business”) to the Federation’s Promotion and Prevention Conference in Atlanta, USA, in December as superior examples of community outreach. We would like to note honors received by two consumers’ representatives last year. Board member-atlarge Janet Meagher was given the Gold Award at the THEMHS Consumer Day (a large annual conference for consumers). Former WFMH Board member Mary O’Hagan’s distinguished service on behalf of consumers in New Zealand was recognized by her appointment as one of that country’s Mental Health Commissioners. South America Paulo Alterwain, Director of the Mental Health Unit in Uruguay’s Ministry of Public Health, has been the Federation’s Regional Vice President since September 1999. Dr. Alterwain translates into Spanish sections of the WFMH newsletter and other materials forwarded by the Secretariat, and circulates them to his Federation contacts in South America. His main goals last year were to strengthen this network and to promote the World Mental Health Day theme of “Mental Health and Work.” In Uruguay this fitted with the concerns of his own government about the eradication of child labor and the working conditions of adolescents. He was also successful in encouraging the attention of the government of Paraguay to mental health issues, and identified sources of technical support for that country in the Southern Cone area. Paraguay declared 2000 the “Year of Mental Health” in addition to observing World Mental Health Day. Chile, where WFMH’s World Congress was held in 1999, already has a well established national program for World Mental Health Day under the leadership of the Mental Health Unit of the Ministry of Health and Dr. Alfredo Pemjean. He promoted the program in all of the country’s thirteen regions and twenty-five provinces. There were many provincial celebrations of the Day in Argentina, and at one of them, a mental health congress in Cordoba, planning began for further regional collaboration involving Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. Southeast Asia The Philippine Mental Health Association (PMHA) celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with special events in October, including a WFMH Southeast Asian Regional Conference on 12-13 October 2000. The PMHA is a longstanding organizational member of the Federation, and its current president, Eva Gonzalez, is the Federation’s Regional Vice President. In honor of the World Mental Health Day theme of “Mental Health and Work” the conference had many sessions on workplace issues. Speakers included the Secretary of the Department of Labor and Employment, the Chair of the Civil Service Commission, the Executive Director of the Occupational Safety and Health Center, and the Vice President of the Employee Confederation of the Philippines. WFMH Secretary General Marten deVries gave the keynote address. Representatives from Cambodia, India, Japan, Malaysia and Mongolia were invited to attend the conference. Later they met with Prof. DeVries to discuss matters of common concern. Dr. Gonzalez and PMHA Executive Director Regina de Jesus made the arrangements to bring the group together, the first time such a meeting has been held for WFMH in the region. Board member Shimpei Inoue was present from Japan, and the shared interests of the Federation’s Southeast Asia and Western Pacific regions were among the items examined. Western Pacific Region The WFMH Western Pacific Region cosponsored a conference on 29-30 July 2000 on “Disaster and Mental Health: Interactions among Government, NGOs and International Organizations.” The meeting, arranged by the Mental Health Association in Taiwan, was designed to review relief efforts following the major earthquake on WFMH Board member Shimpei Inoue with Dr. Cornelio Banaag, Board member of the Philippine Mental Health Association, at the opening of the WFMH Southeast Asian Regional Conference on 12-13 October 2000 in Manila. This event marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of the PMHA. 21 September 1999. President Elect Pirkko Lahti and the Federation’s Main Representative at the United Nations, Nancy Wallace, attended the conference at the invitation of Regional Vice President Chueh Chang. While in Taiwan they attended a press conference on 28 July to highlight consumers’ concerns. They consulted with labor leaders at a petroleum refinery on mental health issues in the workplace, visited child-care projects, and discussed plans with local WFMH members to form a Regional Council for the Western Pacific. A preparatory committee led by Dr. Yow-Hwey Hu is working on criteria to establish the Council. In the second half of the year Dr. Chang was engaged in planning for a Western Pacific regional meeting, which was held on 12-13 January 2001 in Kaohsiung on the theme of “Human Rights and the Mental Health Board member Chueh Chang attended a press conference held at the Consumers Foundation office in Taiwan on 28 July 2000 to highlight consumers’ concerns. of Minorities.” Pirkko Lahti and Nancy Wallace returned to Taiwan to participate in the program. The meeting included representatives from nine countries, with translation in four languages, and brought together NGOs, consumers, government officials and professionals. The topics covered were mental health, violence against women, occupational issues for labor, human rights, and the promotion of cultural wellbeing. Okinawa Conference, Japan In Japan, an International Mental Health Symposium was held in Okinawa on 6-7 October, sponsored by WFMH, the Okinawa Mental Health and Welfare Association, and the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Ryukyus. The theme was “Building Partnerships with Users of Mental Health Services in Asia-Pacific Countries.” Kazuyoshi Yamamoto led the organizers, who included WFMH Board member-at-large Shimpei Inoue. The first day of the program featured talks by WFMH’s Honorary President Tsung-yi Lin and current Board member Janet Meagher, and a symposium with international delegates. This meeting was followed by the Sixth National Conference of the Japanese Federation for Psychiatric Users, which was attended by over 1,250 people. Janet Meagher was again a featured speaker, and Dr. Inoue reports “there are still many users who well remember her impressive talk.”