Prevention in mental health and awareness of the serious problem of suicide have a special focus during the month of September with this campaign, to which efforts from many institutions and people join, doing so the social projects of the Augustinian Recollects in the capital of the Brazilian state of Ceara.
The Saint Augustine Psychosocial Care Center (CAPSA) of the Augustinian Recollects in Fortaleza (Brazil) maintains various actions throughout the year to promote dignity and social justice in the area around the Jangurussu neighborhood in the capital of the Brazilian state of Ceara.
Its social action in the neighborhood focuses on family monitoring and support in very varied aspects: food distribution; advice from social workers to exercise citizenship in a conscious and responsible way; training families in various subjects: social rights, household hygiene, balanced nutrition, correct use of water and waste management in the home environment, family education, care for the elderly, women’s rights…
The World Health Organization and the International Association for Suicide Prevention promote the “Yellow September” campaign every year, focused on depression, so that those who suffer from it and those around them know how to seek and find help to avoid suicide and suicide attempts, one of the fundamental causes of which is this illness.
The mere fact of “accompanying”, speaking openly about the issue, expressing feelings and opinions, is in itself a way of actively working to prevent suicides. For this reason, CAPSA brought together a group of volunteer psychotherapists to offer training through open dialogue with the beneficiaries of the project, a hundred single mothers.
There were group training sessions and more personalized meetings with a key word: listening. The beneficiaries of CAPSA are women who live in a disadvantaged environment, and who are often the sole leaders of their families, with children and older adults in their care. They live a hard, difficult, stressful life and, despite being strong women with very interesting life experiences, it is not uncommon for them to sometimes succumb to a reality that overwhelms them.
At CAPSA, with sensitivity and commitment to life, the volunteers listened to their stories, calmed anguished hearts and encouraged them to begin a process of healing and acquiring tools to maintain strength and the spirit of overcoming.
For many of those assisted, the meeting represented the first opportunity in their lives to speak openly about their pain and anguish, to express themselves without receiving a judgement or an aggressive response, feeling the support they so desperately needed.
The volunteers, given their professional training, also managed to identify the cases that needed more in-depth monitoring because they represented a greater risk of losing mental health, in order to refer them to individualized and continued care at CAPSA itself.
The Saint Augustine Psychosocial Care Centre thus reaffirms its desire to offer comprehensive care to people in all their dimensions, especially those who receive fewer resources and interest from society and the Administration, such as mental health and emotional care.
In a world marked by suffering and lack of hope, initiatives such as this bring life and renew faith in the future. During the public and private conversations of the psychotherapists, it was common to see recovered smiles, grateful glances, people feeling valued.
In turn, after living this experience, they become transforming agents of their own context, bringing to their homes more understanding, listening and appreciation, empathy in a place marked by vulnerability, loneliness when facing problems with disinterest or even indifference from society towards the most disadvantaged.
Mental health is as important as bread on the table, it is an indispensable factor in the recovery of dignity and hope. The beneficiaries felt this support and guidance, affection and welcome, and now they will take it to their homes, to their friends, to their neighborhood.
