Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered mental health to the forefront of the public’s consciousness. Everyone is suffering from isolation and loneliness, or overwhelmed by caring for dependents. Besides protecting ourselves and our families from this illness people are worried about financial ruin. The most affected by this seem to be millennials as they are the ones who suffer the brunt of the socioeconomic impact of the COVID19 pandemic. The highest rates of unemployment due to COVID19 are among those aged 23 to 37. In developed world mental health issues to do with stress and anxiety are being addressed at community and national level. Examples are nations like England where organisations like MIND are engaging government and the community on these issues. Mental health issues to do with stress and anxiety due to the socioeconomic impact of the COVID 19 among the Zimbabwean youth have not been given much platform to be addressed at community level and national level.
Advocacy Issue
- Communities and society in Zimbabwe are not recognising the socioeconomic impact of COVID19 on the youth (millenials) from a mental health perspective with relation to anxiety and stress. Very little is being done by government and community level authorities and stakeholders to recognise and address the resultant mental health disorders like insomnia, and emotional disorders.
- No professional or community services exists in mainstream health or social channels to provide support for the youth in the Mbundane Township, Bulawayo, to address the above stated issue.
Action (how you drove the Issue)
- Primarily, the action was intended to reach out to young people in the Mbundane Community in Mguza, Bulawayo. This drive began with the advocate reaching out to a group of 4 youths aged 24 to 26 who were invited to be ambassadors for the drive along with the advocator, Zolisa Gumede, in the Mbundane, Mguza Bulawayo. First contact with the ambassadors was on the 3rd of April and the target location for the drive was the Zimtrust residential area in Mbundane. The ambassadors and the advocate are self-employed and conduct their business activities in the residential area of Mbundane Township. The ambassadors were chosen because of their visibility in the area and are peer role models for most young people in the Mbundane community. As part of the Mbundane community these young ambassadors, with the advocate, reached out to other youths within the Mbundane community and started speaking and teaching about Coronavirus related stress and anxiety. Making the community aware of the serious impact of this on mental health.
- Alongside face to face outreach this advocacy drive with the youth, Peer-Help-Groups were also established on WhatsApp. In these groups the young people that would have linked up with the ambassadors are brought together to support each other through any anxiety issues.
- Additionally the advocator approached two elderly community leaders of Mbundane and invited them to take up mentorship roles in this advocacy drive. One is a nurse at Ngutsheni Mental hospital in Bulawayo and the other is a High School Counsellor at a school in Pelandaba. Mentorship and counselling connections were created through WhatsApp and in person, where young people can seek support from these community leaders in relevant fields of interest in dealing with mental health issues from different perspectives.
- The advocacy programme still intends to create more Peer-Help-Groups on other social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. At this stage the drive will target other community youths starting with Bulawayo based youths (Nketa and Pelandaba). When a number of 100 participants are reached the drive intends to approach Community Counsellors to lobby them for the provision of professional counselling services for stress and anxiety.
- The drive also intends to later establish (1 year time frame), art expressive Peer-Help-Initiatives on Instagram and YouTube.
- It also intends to engage NGOs and other stakeholders for the provision of professional services for mental health and anxiety disorder care.
Experiences
- Although getting peer ambassadors for the drive was not difficult since these ambassadors were people known to the advocate, getting the other youth to pay attention to the drive and participate was difficult. Most of the youth were uninterested and annoyed at the initiative stating that the initiative contributed nothing to their efforts to overcome socioeconomic challenges that have developed due to the COVID 19 pandemic and related restrictions. However those who chose to participate became more forthcoming on WhatsApp than they were in person. Bringing forward their preference for media interaction over face to face interaction.
- It is difficult to maintain contact with participating youths to evaluate their progress in dealing with their stress or anxiety issues (especially those who exhibit long term anxiety issues).
- Maintaining contact with participants in the drive is also challenges by the financial constraints they face in acquiring data for social media contact through WhatsApp. Initially to avoid this the drive encouraged participants to physically visit the initiative’s mentors at their residential areas but few responded and those stopped doing so with time. They cited lack of time, and opportunity to visit the counsellor and mental healthcare worker for talk session or progress updates.
Achievements
- The drive managed to contact and work with 17 youth from the Mbundane community.
- The drive also managed to establish 3 WhatsApp groups to provide support for youths suffering Coronavirus anxiety. Two of the groups where Peer-Help-Groups while the other was a point of contact for youth who wanted to engage mentors for professional support.
- Multiple suicide alerts were diverted by the mentors.
Challenges
- Some youths could not be engaged in the Peer-Help-Groups because they had no access to digitally appropriate phones. Efforts to engage them on a face to face basis ended with young people refusing to participate because face-face interaction they claimed was time consuming.
- At the initial stages most community leaders refused to participate as mentors claiming that they had pressing schedules.
- The community counsellor declined from assisting the advocator to reach out to community leaders appropriately situated so that they could participate in the drive as mentors.
- In the Peer-Help -Groups on WhatsApp instances of bullying where experienced.
Conclusion
The drive is still being set up according to its initial plan of action above. Challenges faced have not deterred the execution of the advocacy drive. However, to raise momentum for this drive the advocate will have to make more use of social media platforms and engage a snowball strategy asking each person contacted to speak out about Coronavirus Anxiety and in turn contact someone else to speak out about Coronavirus Anxiety
