Mental Health & Well-Being Webinar - One Nation Our People
Empower Pacific completed a five-week Mental Health & Well-Being webinar series for the One Nation Our People – Youth Group based in Lautoka.
From left to right: Mr. Rifaa-at Ali - Vice President of One Nation Our People , Mr. Abdul Zorhab - President of One Nation Our People, Miss. Radhisha Nath- General Secretary of One Nation Our People.
Behind: Mr Harrison Kautoga, Empower Pacific, AHP Program Manager.
These sessions began on the 1st of October and were conducted every Friday for five weeks via Zoom and were facilitated by our team of Counsellors and Social Workers. The sessions were based on issues affecting the youth in their daily lives such as managing strong emotions like anger, maintaining healthy interpersonal relationships, enhancing emotional resilience, Child Protection & Safeguarding and Gender-Based Violence.
“Emotional resilience and anger management were two topics I was very interested in and gained a lot of knowledge on,” says Aisha Zahoor – one of the participants.
Mr. Vicky Kumar who attended all the sessions said that he liked how videos were incorporated into the webinars allowing everyone to absorb the information easily. “The presenters did a brilliant job on answering questions that were posed by the audience,” he adds.
Nehsym Mohammed, another participant of the session said that “Emotional resilience and anger management sessions were intriguing as these are rarely talked about in everyday life but do pose as constant factors leading to difficult relationships in life.”
Mr. Harrison Kautoga – AHP Program Manager says that their aim with the sessions was to impart important information and share useful tips to improve the health and well-being of the Youths. “Our Youths are facing a lot of challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic – there’s a lot of abuse happening, the pressures of life are causing relationships to deteriorate and emotions to intensify. We need to give them this support so they can learn to manage and get help when needed”, he adds.
One of our Counsellors, Mrs. Reshmi Singh who facilitated a session on psychological resilience says “My aim for the youths was to psycho-educate them on how they can be resilient during times of adversity such as the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges that they may be facing in their lives”.
During her session, Mrs. Singh highlighted that everyone copes differently in times of difficulties and provided aassurance and support to the youths.
Furthermore, in the Child Protection and Safeguarding session, one of the participants asked if it was okay for adults to ask for help. This made us realize that individuals were not fully aware of where to get help and how.
Week 4 session being conducted on Child Protection & Safeguarding
“Things like child abuse may be on the rise, especially during the pandemic, since parents are frustrated because of jobs, children are bored at home and don't listen to parents, and children acting out”, says Ms. Aisha Zahoor. “It is important for people in the society to know the signs of abuse and the actions that can be taken to safeguard children”, she further adds.
After this session, the participants were able to understand the importance of the role they play in protecting and safeguarding Children in their community.
Mr. Abdul Zorhab, President of One Nation Our People says that these sessions will help the youths in their studies, their professional careers as well as in their club activities.
FACT FILE:
Through the Australian Humanitarian Partnership (AHP), Empower Pacific is supported by ChildFund Australia (CFA) under the Plan International Australia (PIA) Consortium.
Abdul Zorhab is also a suicide survivor. He shared his story with us for World Mental Health Day 2021.
You can view his testimony on this link.