HRAC organises workshop on promoting mental health

Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC), a non-profit organisation dedicated to promotion and protection of human rights has organised a day’s workshop to promote quality access to mental healthcare and rights of persons with mental disabilities.

The participants, including; advocacy groups in the Jasikan District of the Oti Region, pupils and students were taken through how to support and assist persons with psychosocial disorders in their treatment regimen and how to advocate conditions that would not infringe on their human rights and dignity among others.

The workshop was put together with support from Ghana Health Service, Mental Health Authorities, Star-Ghana Foundation, European Union, UK Aid (from the British people) and DANIDA on the theme, “Protecting the Wellbeing and Rights of Persons with Mental Disabilities.”

Mr Lawrence Kwame Aziale, District Chief Executive (DCE) for the area advised people especially the youth to stay away from illicit drugs, saying, those substances could harm their brains and negatively impact on their future and the country as a whole.

Mr Nii Lartey Addico, Co-Director of MindFreedom Ghana, an organisation with its broad area of operation being in mental health matters in Ghana, said persons with mental disorders “are entitled to the same fundamental human rights and dignity as those without the disorders and we should recognise them as human beings.”