JOURNEYING Towards
FROM COPING TO THRIVING! This story chronicles the evolution of the Indonesian Mental Health Association based in Jakarta in view of the World Mental Health Day (October 10, 2019). People with a psychosocial disability, affected by their mental health condition, continue to fight for their rights and needs. They deserve and want to thrive and not just cope. The Indonesian Mental Health Association (IMHA), a previous Voice empowerment grantee in Indonesia, focused on unlocking the abilities and potential of women with psychosocial disabilities, breaking barriers while doing it. The rightsholders were taught how to document their own stories through video. They made videos all on their own -from script creation, and scene preparation, to editing. The participants found the method of relaying messages through video fun and exciting. As an organisation, they have adopted this as an approach. Expanding their advocacy work, IMHA worked together with Human Rights Watch and select government institutions on a new report entitled “Living in Chains: Shackling
An invitation to journey with us
of People with Psychosocial Disabilities Worldwide”. This report looks at how people with mental health conditions are treated in their own homes or in social care institutions, influenced by stigma and lack of appropriate and rights-based services.
This concerns us all
The message of the women to us is:
I am Alassane Traore, I am a genderqueer, non-binary person from Mali who fights for universal rights for all but especially the LGBTI community in Mali. My conviction and commitment stem mainly from the experiences in my own life. For the first twenty years of my life, I was the victim of a lot of violence against me which raised a lot of questions and unfortunately no responses. It was only after twenty years that I found some answers about my own gender identity and expression and how this was related to the harassment while I was only trying to be myself. These difficulties emboldened my conviction to fight for the rights of all[...].
“People with psychosocial disability have the same rights as other people. There should be no discrimination at all according to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). We have the same needs and rights as you. Proper health care is just one aspect, but like you, we also have the right to work, education, and housing. Indonesia has ratified the CRPD back in 2011, and the government must go by this and fulfil our rights as with others.”
These are two among many Voices of Change that Voice has encountered. At the same time, they tell a common story of the lived experience of discrimination and marginalisation, violence and being deprived of opportunities and rights.
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