KATHMANDU: US Ambassador to Nepal, Randy Berry has said that the U.S. Mission in Kathmandu has been working hand in hand in communities to empower Nepalis to live independently with dignity and the full realization of their human rights.
The USAID has been at the forefront of mental health assistance, including, empowering people with disabilities to live independently, working across five districts such as Morang, Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Makwanpur and Kailali, he said at a virtual program: Beyond Hashtags: Mental Health Activism in Nepal Friday.
Ambassador Berry said the USAID collaborated with the World Health Organization on the Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Project, to provide mental health and psychosocial support services to the victims of the 2015 earthquake.
“Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the USAID has provided extensive technical assistance, training, and equipment to assist Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population in the continuity of essential health services,” he added.
According to him, the assistance also includes one-on-one telephone counseling to 1.8 million families; and Counseling and psychological support to health care workers.
“This interagency, whole-of-government interventions have strengthened the longstanding, 73-year long partnership between the United States and Nepal,” he added.
He further added, “When Nepal succeeds, so does the U.S., and that is why we are having this conversation. We’re all here today because we share a common truth: the ability to connect with one another can transform. It can empower. It can enable.”
He also talked about what he called “striking” statistics from the United States in one in 5 Americans – or over 40 million people – had been diagnosed with a mental illness in 2015.
According to him, an alarming percentage of children have a mental disorder so serious that it affects their daily functioning – that’s more than the number of children who have asthma and diabetes combined.
In the US, over 40,000 people commit suicide every year. That’s the same number of deaths as breast cancer – the most common cancer in women, he said.
“It’s more than the number of deaths from, prostate cancer – the most common cancer in men. It’s three times the number of homicides that occur each year,” he said.
Stating that mental illness costs lives, and it costs families and costs suffering, mental illness and disorders are not regarded with anything like the same importance as physical health in most parts of the world.
He said they have been largely ignored or neglected.
Comment