Emotional Health & Wellbeing
What is the project?
HCA, with volunteer psychiatrists and member organisations, is conducting free emotional health and mental wellbeing camps that is open to all members of WA community. Each camp will be delivered over 4 hours and will consist of Yoga, Mindfulness, Psychiatrist Q& A sessions, Motivational seminar, vegetarian lunch and networking with camp facilitators/ volunteers. Previously delivered to university and TAFE students, youth, women, men and elderly from all communities, HCA has delivered four camps in 2020-21. These camps are self-funded through member organisation donations and volunteers, along with venue support from Therapy Focus WA.
Many thanks Team Samskruthi (Vijay ji) , HSS (Madhavi ji), Ayurveda for Wellness (Vidhu ji), Dada Bhagwan (Hiten ji), Dr Monica Sinha, Youth Volunteers (Amrutha and Tanya) and HVH Ambassador (Amit Mehta ji). For giving freely of your time, your professionalism and your support
Why are you doing the project?
The focus of these camps is to help individuals develop a healthy attitude towards the disabling social effects of the pandemic and to help build resilience. The world is not as we knew it since this pandemic began with many facing challenges that are stressful and causing otherwise settled people to be affected. This has been made worse by public safety measures like social distancing, as they add to isolation, loneliness, fear and anxiety.
2020 was particularly challenging for our youth because many were either suffering the impact of living away from family or living in isolation without social contact. Camps in 2020 were tailored to meet the specific need of university and TAFE students, especially international students. These camps included invaluable 1:1 free mental health assessments by volunteer consultant psychiatrists. Once the acute emotional need of international students was addressed to a level that enabled them to settle back into studies and student life, the camp opened up in 2021 for all local residents.
2021 has brought the mental health challenge of long drawn pandemic isolation across all sections of the community. The challenge is to help people from all walks of life – parents, grandparents, frontline workers- because we all have been living under lockdown for over 18 months and many of us have family overseas. Some of us have lost close family members elsewhere in Australia or in the world but have not been able attend last rites or grieve appropriately. Similarly, many of us have had to make do with online family celebrations of birth, graduation. Some of us lost jobs, some of us have not been able to look after ourselves. The second wave has been very punishing to every country, including Australia.
