World Mental Health Day 2015.

Thika Town Today  joins the rest of the world and Kenyans in celebrating World Mental Health Day. To help mark the occasion, we're raising awareness of what can be done to ensure that people with mental health problems can live with dignity.

It is said that one in every four adults and one in ten children are likely to have a mental health problem in any given year. This has had a profound impact on the lives of tens of millions of people in Kenya, thus affecting their ability to sustain relationships, work, or just get through the day.
An ill-informed and damaging attitude among some people exists around mental health thus making it difficult for some to seek help.

It is estimated that only about a quarter of people with a mental health problem in the Kenya receive ongoing treatment, leaving the majority of people grappling with mental health issues on their own, seeking help or information, and dependent on the informal support of family, friends or colleagues.

This stigma can be confronted  through facts. These facts will help us understand patterns of mental health problems, their causes and solutions. The facts will help us break down barriers in seeking help and support.

At the heart of mental health is a focus on prevention,the best way to deal with a crisis is to prevent it from happening in the first place. For instance, by providing the right information, guidance and support in childhood and adolescence, chances of developing mental health problems can be reduced for millions of people over a lifetime.

The focus on prevention is in part about what we can all do to safeguard our wellbeing, and also about tackling the social and economic inequalities that can lead to a higher prevalence of mental health problems.

Throughout this month of October please help us by sharing Facts about mental health on social media with family, friends and colleagues. As Thika Town Today we believe that effectively supporting people experiencing mental health problems is on target to become one of the greatest public health challenges in recent time.

Stigma and discriminatory treatment can be particularly distressing when a person is experiencing a health crisis. Each one of us has a mental health issue and by failing to treat people with mental health problems with dignity we make it more difficult for them to ensure that everyone takes steps to safeguard their well being and to seek help, as it can lead to self-stigma, low confidence, low self-esteem, withdrawal and social isolation.