Care & Support of the Mentally Distressed

A 7.9 Richter scale earthquake hit Nepal on April 25th causing the greatest destruction the country has faced in 80 years followed by a second strong shake of 7.3 Richter scale on the 12th of May, affecting 8 million people. Communities that were living in poverty even before the earthquake have been hit hard and men, women, children, people affected by mental health are most vulnerable in this time of emergency.

CNMH is working in the district of Lalitpur in Kathmandu valley facilitating appropriate support and treatment for homeless and mentally ill people, so that they can be accepted back into society. Before the earthquake, CNMH was working with 91 clients (50 men and 41 women) on the streets, working closely with 52 of individuals and has located families in 30 cases.

Chhahari Nepal for Mental Health (CNMH) went into action on the third day after the disaster struck to investigate and identify our clients’ need. The sporadic location of our clients and their displacement since the quake has made it difficult for us to locate them for assessment. However, out of 52 clients who we are working with; at this time we have managed to visit and provide basic help and psychosocial counseling to 42 clients including 10 new clients who were on the streets after the earthquake. Upon certifying the safety of our clients (few had minor injuries), our team started providing relief which included food and non-food iteams as well as psycho social counseling to carers as well.

Chhahari initiated a Post-Eathquake Response Activity project, which is divided into III phases. In phase I, we emphasize on assessing our clients living condition and to what extent earthquake affected them be it physically, mentally, financially and socially. Likewise, during this phase CNMH was also involved in distribution of relief materials like food, tarpaulins, blankets, sleeping bags, clothes, hygiene kits, first-aid kits and home prepared hot meals mainly to our clients.

As we worked upon phase I, we identified the need of the development of another phase; and in phase II, we mainly carry out the objectives of locating new clients and re-connecting them with their family/relatives. Likewise, this phase was also designed to carry out the process of working in co-ordination with the community in accessing clients’ living condition. Under this phase, CNMH plans to provide funds to help clients continue with the medication and to provide monetary support for carers treatment. However, we also identified the need for various psycho-social training programmes on stress management, peer support, counseling and community based psychosocial support, to be provided to the staffs and volunteers; to continue to develop in post-earthquake response activities with mentally distressed group. We plan to get more professional help to support staff and built their capacity.

In this way, as we process towards the phase II, we plan to work on these activities in order to extend and build-up the activities for phase III.