Striving Muslims, a group of young Muslims, has organized a Spelling Bee championship and Mental Health education outreach for basic school children in the Wa Municipality, with the top 3 winners being females.
The competition held on Tuesday, January 4, 2022 at the Huuriya Islamic School premises, drew together over one hundred children from different schools, both public and private, across the municipality from KG to Junior High School.
Speaking in an interview with Info Radio, the CEO of Striving Muslims doubled as a Mental Health Ambassador, Abdul Na-eem Muniru said the main focus of the event was on mental health related issues but included an educational component to drive high interest and participation of all children.
He noted that the Spelling Bee educational component was to also develop the children’s interest in learning and taking their academic work serious.
Abdul Na-eem noted that identifying and talking to children on mental health related issues was decisive and deliberate to bring children into the mental health advocacy picture.
He said that even though mental health was a complex and technical area of exposition, it was necessary to demystify the issues for children to understand and appreciate the need to stay healthy of mental health complications.
He admonished the children to stay away from drug and substance intake in order not to fall victims of mental ill-health.
The winners of the Spelling Bee Championship shared their cheerfulness about the event and the parcels they received in remittance of their triumph. All three top winners were females.
A student from Wa Municipal Model JHS emerged winner with the others from Huriya Islamic School and Dan-Ibu International School as First and Second Runners-up respectively.
The winners were awarded with certificates of honour, branded T-shirts and parcels of items.
Other participants who made it to the top 12 received branded T-shirts.
The Mental Health Ambassador has said that mental health is a delicate health issue that should be handled with conscious care.
He bemoaned that the general public has most often linked issues of mental health to superstitious beliefs and origins.
He expressed worry that people do not know that medical conditions lead to mental health disorders but hold unto misconceptions.
He said that the mythization and distortion of facts about mental health has caused mental ill-health conditions to be looked at as spiritual other than medical.
He urged the general to normalize visiting of psychologists, psychiatric and guidance and counseling units for seeking mental care.
He said this in reference to the fact that when someone visits these units, the public tend to stigmatize and begun labeling the clients as mentally challenged even when they are not diagnosed as such.
He said it was not helpful to mental health care since some people out of anxiety, depression or some other condition may harbor suicidal thoughts and eventually commits the act, trying to avoid stigma.
He has called on the government to institutionalize a mental health education session in the country’s educational system especially at the basic level to create early awareness on mental health related issues among the populace.
He also called for strengthened guidance and counseling systems in the country to better handle matters relating to mental health.
He however indicated that even though educational psychologists were helping in the area of mental health, there was the need for more medical psychologists.