Raabta Project
There is a high prevalence of mental health challenges in Pakistan, and low levels of mental health literacy. While poverty, unemployment, displacement, and homelessness continuously rise, so does a National mental health crisis.
Poverty, unemployment, displacement, and homelessness are continuously on the rise, mental health is also becoming a major public health problem.
(Ahmed et al., 2016)
More than 20 million Pakistanis (10% of the country's population) suffer from some form of mental health condition.
Pakistan has one of the lowest psychiatrist-to-person ratios in the world. According to WHO, only 400 psychiatrists and five psychiatric hospitals exist within the entire country for a population exceeding 180 million people.
(World Health Organization, 2019)
Effective community-focused programs and educational content can be developed for a more accessible and autonomous support system for community members with mental illnesses in Pakistan and beyond.
“Growing up South Asian, we have consistently witnessed stigma surround mental health and disabilities. People choose to treat the issues as taboo and assign negative connotations to the conditions. As students of Psychology with aspirations to make a difference, beginning that journey in our home country is vital. Therapy and treatment should not only be an option for the privileged but be available to all those in need of it”.
-Words from our project leads, Aamna Khan and Fizza Sheikh
Our vision for Raabta Project is to promote acceptance, awareness, advocacy, education, programs, resources, and services for mental health and disabilities internationally.
Raabta Project is a part of Manzar Health’s global health alliance and mental health frontier.
References
Depression and anxiety: a snapshot of the situation in Pakistan. Ahmed B, Enam SF, Iqbal Z, et al. https://ecommons.aku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1258&context=pakistan_fhs_mc_surg_surg Int J Neurosci Behav Sci. 2016;4:32–36. [Google Scholar]
Nisar, M., Mohammad, R. M., Fatima, S., Shaikh, P. R., & Rehman, M. (2019). Perceptions Pertaining to Clinical Depression in Karachi, Pakistan. Cureus, 11(7), e5094. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.5094
WHO-AIMS report on mental health system in Pakistan. Geneva: World Health Organization. [Jan;2019 ];World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/mental_health/pakistan_who_aims_report.pdf WHO. 2009 1:6. [Google Scholar]