3 Ways We're Protecting the World's Mental Health

As much as we all enjoy the approaching holiday season, planning get-togethers, gift giving and hosting guests causes many of us stress, anxiety and sometimes even feelings of dread. The reality is mental health issues are a part of life in every community, in every country, on every continent. Yet millions of people carry their burdens in silence.

Mental health is a human right — and everyone deserves to get the care they need to survive and thrive. Around the world, Project HOPE’s mental health work is helping tens of thousands of health workers, refugees, and new mothers access the mental health support they need to protect their well-being. As the need for these services grows, it's vital that we all invest in supporting each other. See how we're helping right now…

A photograph of a class of Ukrainian health workers. The main subject is looking pensively up to the right. They all wear navy blue scrubs and polo shirts as they sit and listen.

TRAINING HEALTH WORKERS
Project HOPE is working to build a world where everyone has access to quality care — and that includes care for health workers.

To address the toll of COVID-19, Project HOPE is implementing mental health and resiliency trainings for frontline health workers. Piloted in the Dominican Republic and Indonesia, training is now expanding across five continents. Together, participants talk openly about burnout, exhaustion, and compassion fatigue — an important step in reducing stigma and normalizing a support system that is often overlooked.

A Ukranian child is held by their mother as they wear a green parka, black gloves and blue hat. A train and crowd of people are in the background.

SUPPORTING REFUGEES
Exposure to war, conflict, and disaster can have a lifelong effect on mental health — especially for children and families forced to flee home. Depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other common mental health disorders are prevalent among refugees and migrants, who often lack access to treatment and care.

We partner with local leaders and organizations to reach families with mental health support as they settle into new communities and grieve the lives — and people — they had to leave behind. This includes training local health workers to provide mental health and psychosocial support.

A Colombian mother and father hold their newborn in a light blue hat. The father smiles down at the baby while the mother smiles directly at the camera.

PROTECTING NEW MOTHERS
One in five women experience mental health issues like anxiety and depression during pregnancy or in the first year of motherhood, and most of them don’t receive treatment.

In places like Indonesia, we are integrating mental health support into our training, so doctors, nurses, and midwives have the knowledge they need to address mental health issues as a regular part of pre- and postnatal care. We’re also training health workers to provide Psychological First Aid to those with high-risk pregnancies.