The Malawi Commonwealth Games Association (Malawi CGA) has conducted a Mental health workshop in trying to complement the effort of curbing Suicide among youths in Malawi from 11th to 12th of May, 2023 at Kamuzu Institute for sports in Lilongwe.
The workshop drew Athletes and Coaches from different sport associations as well as Teachers and Students from four schools in the surrounding community, in total participants were involved.
Dr. Serah Msimuko, Ms. Madalitso Makhalira, Mrs. Hilda Kanjeza, and Mr. Tommy Mthepeteya from Kamuzu Central Hospital Mental health experts facilitated the two days workshop.
Speaking during the closing ceremony, Hon. Jappie Mhango, the President for Malawi CGA said that, they organized this mental health workshop in order to impart the essential knowledge of mental Health to the Athletes Teachers and Students which will in turn bring a positive change in as far as mental health in concerned.
Hon. Mhango further said that, there is a need to reach out to all regions in Malawi and urged the participants to put in action the knowledge they will gather during the two-day Mental health workshop.
In her remarks Dr. Serah Msimuko, who is one of the Mental Health experts said that she is hopeful that, the workshop will help the participants and the general public in dealing with mental health. She further thanked Malawi CGA for organizing the awareness as this has taken the sports fraternity a step further in as far as mental health in sports is concerned.
Pamela Kudiwa one of the participants thanked Malawi CGA for the mental health awareness workshop. She said that workshop has come at the time when the country is experiencing high number of suicide cases this is the perfect timing.
There were performances of different activities at the closing ceremony among others was Poems, Dancing, Boxing, and Judo, it was exciting to watch the performances as the activities were full of Messages learnt during the awareness.
The theme for the awareness campaign workshop was “SUICIDE IS NOT A SOLUTION” translating to ‘Kudzipha si yankho’ in our vernacular.
The workshop is a brainchild of the Malawi CGA with funding from the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) through a project duped ‘GAME CHANGER’ which tries to address a social concern in the environment the CGA operates.