Our Founder speaks at Giving Women conference on mental health
Earlier this month, our founder and CEO Taban was honoured to speak at Giving Women’s Annual Conference in Geneva, which was titled: Mental Health – Not Just a First World Problem.
In a panel called ‘Triggers and Treatment’, which was moderated by Giving Women founder Atalanti Moquette, Taban spoke about her own past struggles, saying: “Throughout my life I’ve had different stages where mental health has been a big crisis for me, and I’ve secretly learned how to cope with it. I’ve been forced to secretly learn, because of the stigma it carries. In my culture it’s not something you talk about – if you do it means you’re crazy.”
Taban also told how her own issues ensured that mental health provision has always been at the core of the Lotus Flower, adding: “It made me realise, ‘what do I do to stop another woman or girl from experiencing this?’ I really do not want them to go through what I’ve gone through.”
On the panel, Taban spoke alongside Raj Mariwala, Director of Mariwala Health Initiative, Rasa Dawson, the Chief Development and Communications Officer at StrongMinds, and Pieter Ventevogel, Senior Mental Health & Psychosocial Support Officer at UNHCR.
Asked to expand further on our work on mental health, Taban explained our strong holistic approach, which brings women and girls together to heal through shared experiences, such as our Boxing Sisters programme. “We needed to find a way to break the stigma and allow them to channel their anger and emotion through a physical platform.”
Another topic of conversation was men and boys’ mental health needs, which are still seldom discussed or tackled. “It’s the full cycle, and about including the whole community,” Taban said. “From that, we said what about the youths over there who are ignored? Suicide rates amongst the young have been really increasing so we started our Youth Suicide Prevention project.”
It was a really interesting debate, and you can watch it in full right here…
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