Depression: Rotary takes rescue mission to schools

Baffled by the ripple effect of depression and mental health in the society, the Rotary Club of Ibadan, Idi-Ishin, District 9125, in partnership with Rotary Club of Wellesley, United States, District 7910, became interested in helping those who are depressed as a result of one difficulty or the other particularly young students.

Under the project name Peer Leadership and Depression Prevention-Nigeria (PLDP-Nig), which has been on since 2018, the Rotary Club of Ibadan, Idi-Ishin, Ibadan, took the rescue campaign on depression and mental health to schools in Oyo, Osun, Ogun and Imo states and 4,075 students have so far been guided on how best to prevent and come out of depression.

Project Director, Rotary Club of Ibadan, Idi-Ishin, Reverend Father Felix-Kingsley Obialo, informed that the project execution is made possible by a global grant from Rotary International that is Rotary Foundation.

He stated that the project was initiated in the United States, it was later taken to India and after India it came to Nigeria.

“Incidentally, I was part of the pilot study for this project in 2011, when high school students in Boston area in the US were called together to see how they can  be assisted because of the high incidence of depression in the US and by extension, globally.

“My part in that pilot project was to see how we can use creative problem-solving skills to assist adolescents to think rightly and to choose rightly so that their choices would not lead to suicide because also it has been found that there are lots of suicides which started as depression that was untreated.

“The idea is also to let people understand that teenagers, adolescents as a whole do not have people to guide them. They do not know how to make good choices that is why they do not share their experience with people. They take decisions that at the end of the day hurt them and unfortunately some of them ended up committing suicide,” he said.

Obialo, said the project is designed to have three interfaces with adolescents, that is those who are 13 years and above, their parents and their teachers. “We want them to acquire knowledge and put them to practice what they have learnt.

“I believe that it is not sufficient for people to say knowledge is power. A lot of people are knowledgeable but what do they make of the knowledge? So this project helps to actually empower people with the skills to take decisions and to act rightly because people take decisions that are at times that are harmful to them because of their depressive state.

“This project also emphasises the fact that depression is medical illness that can be treated. For instance when you have malaria you go to the doctor to complain and he prescribes medication and then you get well. This project emphasises that as you go to get medication for your ailment, you can also go to the hospital so that you get expert’s advice from either a clinical psychologist or a psychiatrist.

“So we discovered during our interface that the knowledge level about depression among the three focal groups, that is the adolescents, parents and teachers is very low and one of the things we want to achieve with this project is to remove stigma.

“You know we live in a country where stigma is a very big issue, people can be stigmatised for various reasons such as tribe, politics, culture, health, among others.

“We believe that like in other climes where this project has been successful if a lot of Nigerians learn more about mental health issues, then the stigma would reduce and when people know that there is no stigmatisation because of their mental health challenge because they are depressed, they would seek help.”

Obialo hinted that there is no discrimination in the execution of the project as the campaign was taken to both Muslim and Christian schools. He also stated that aside the fact that 4,075 student have been reached out to, 1040 parents have also been trained, while 409 teachers have been impacted by the project.

“We have gone to 22 secondary schools in all these states that I have mentioned. For making this project a reality, we must commend our contact person at Rotary Club of Wellesley, United States, District 7910, Rotarian Bob Anthony for the tremendous support.

“We strongly believe that our intervention through this project has positively impacted our target audience and with this, we hope that the rate of depression within the society would reduce to the barest minimum.”

Also speaking on the project, Assistant Governor Rotary Club, District 9125, Nigeria 2020/2021 in charge of Rotary Club of Ibadan, Idi-Ishin, Rotarian Idowu Adewumi, stated that impact assessment had been done on the project.

“What we are trying to do in conjunction with our international partners, the Rotary Club in the United States is to make sure we put on advocacy on the issue of depression and mental health and that is what we have been doing in Rotary Club of Ibadan, Idi-Ishin for almost three years.

“The impact is wide because we have been able to touch four states impacting positively on almost five thousand students excluding the teachers and the parents.”

He, however, charged the general public to always do whatever that can make them happy and avoid group of people that would bring them down or make them feel sad to an extent that they get depressed.

YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

We Have Not Had Water Supply In Months ― Abeokuta Residents

In spite of the huge investment in the water sector by the government and international organisations, water scarcity has grown to become a perennial nightmare for residents of Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital. This report x-rays the lives and experiences of residents in getting clean, potable and affordable water amidst the surge of COVID-19 cases in the state… Rotary takes rescue mission  Rotary takes rescue mission

Selfies, video calls and Chinese documentaries: The things you’ll meet onboard Lagos-Ibadan train

The Lagos-Ibadan railway was inaugurated recently for a full paid operation by the Nigerian Railway Corporation after about a year of free test-run. Our reporter joined the train to and fro Lagos from Ibadan and tells his experience in this report… Rotary takes rescue mission  Rotary takes rescue mission