The Community Development Unit of the Tema Metropolitan Assembly has organized an outreach programme to educate the youth on how to detect mental health challenges and avoid them.

Organized in cooperation with All African University Television (AAUTV), to commemoration World Mental Health Day, the programme focused on how to handle suicide thoughts as well as detecting such tendencies among their peers.

In an address, the Pubic Relation Officer (PRO), Accra Psychiatric Hospital, Mr. Emmanuel Aboagye, said it was the society which defined who a mental patient was.

Mr. Aboagye said anything one did that did not conform to the norms and values of the society could be termed as metal illness.

Mr. Aboagye explained that mental illness could come about as a result of aging when memory loss sets adding, “It can also be caused by malaria, typhoid fever, stress, epilepsy, drug abuse, and HIV/AIDS.”

A clinical psychologist and Lecturer at the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS), Dr. Emmanuel Dziwornu, addressing the challenges with suicide within the Ghanaian society, said, “We have demonized suicide and mental health patients, so we fear to assist them with their situation because people think the victims are demon possessed.

Dr. Dziwornu informed that mental ailments could be treated and therefore society should desist from stigmatizing those with such conditions because that would then be adding to their stress and worsening their plight.

“You don’t need suicide to escape challenges; you should rather seek the help of a professional counselor who could help them unravel the challenges they may be encountering, “he said.

The medical practitioner urged them to focus on their studies instead of getting into relationships which could disturb them and lead to conditions of mental health if they got out of hand.

The outreach programme was held for over 500 students within the Tema Metropolis.

Some of the schools present were OLAMS Senior High School, Chemu Senior High School, Datus Senior High School, Tema Methodist Day Senior High School, Manheam Senior High School, Tema Technical School, and Tema Presbyterian Senior High School.