October 10: World Mental Health Day

This Thursday, October 10, The La Duna Residential Center (Astres Foundation) celebrates World Mental Health Day, in which it will seek, again, to concentrate attention and participation in the deltebre community itself. They write to us from Deltebre:

By Gemma Navarro, psychologist at La Duna

Beliefs, attitudes and social reactions have a big impact on the lives of people with mental illness. We must be aware that behind each mental illness, there is a person who positions it as the central axis in his biography, such as his brand, his essence. Too often society uses negative brand labels to talk about mental health; the madman, the depressive, the manic, the psychotic, etc. Labelling that gives rise to exclusion, difference and social inequality.

Our day-to-day life is to promote the learning and expression of new behaviours to favour mechanisms of self-government and response. We are looking for new opportunities, new ways of doing. We seek to unlearn behaviors to learn new ones. It is not about ignoring difficulties, disability or risk factors, but about investing energy throughout a process of discovery and global approach to one’s own courage and recognition of its person within a local community. Belonging to a social space or group is vital.

Too often society uses negative brand labels to talk about mental health

Direct interaction in and with the local community is one of the transversal axes of our center project. From La Duna we consider our own Community the most valuable and significant network. The community offers us proximity, essential to work from a comprehensive and integrated attention, to create social and trusting links and to promote the feeling of belonging and context. That is why we strive to open up to it and take advantage of all the resources it offers us, both institutionally and at the level of the associative fabric.

Responding to users suffering from mental illness requires public understanding and co-responsibility

Responding to users suffering from mental illness requires public understanding and co-responsibility. Citizens must carry out actions and establish commitments for the execution; the network must recognize the importance of social integration in the development of the individual and it is necessary to influence it in order to promote inclusion, ensure participation in decision-making that affects their lives and access to their fundamental rights.

Taking advantage of the services and resources of our Community we consolidate our participatory presence in the Festival Deltebre Dansa (International Dance Festival), we participate in the village festivals (Carnival, Festa Major, Market and Fairs, Three Kings Parade, etc.), we are regular users of the Municipal Library and we also actively participate with schools, sports associations, etc. The La Duna Theatre Group and the Riumar School is also a clear example of how through the shows, we have managed to bring down the wall of stereotypes and fears that isolate and make these people invisible and show that no one can be prejudiced by their condition.