Project Name: UNEC Mental health Accessibility Project Description
I am currently a Millennium Fellow with the United Nations Academic Impact and the Millennium Campus Network. My fellowship project focuses on building a system where students and young people have increased access to mental health resources including information about empathetic and competent mental health professionals whom they can confide in (mental health guidance and counseling).
While the mainstream conversation and society’s focus is primarily on mental health awareness, my goal is to move beyond just enlightenment to establishing a structure that directs students and young people to existing mental health resources where they can actually confide in qualified counselors.
My Millennium Fellowship project will serve as the platform to build this visibility structure. Through whatsapp peer-to-peer conversations and group chats, I will actively facilitate a direct link for students to access established, free mental health resources, such as those offered by the Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI). This work aims to mental health accessibility within our student community.
This initiative is deeply personal to me. My experience with OCD from childhood ignited a deep passion for mental health and led me to pursue a degree in Nursing. My journey has given me unique insight and empathy for others battling with mental health struggles, and my nursing education has provided me with a strong clinical foundation.
The core goal of this initiative is to ensure that mental health awareness and information on direct access to existing national services reach all undergraduate students of the University of Nigeria Enugu Campus (UNEC).
Strategy and Outreach
My outreach strategy is designed to actively connect with UNEC undergraduate students by utilizing the communication channels they already trust. Recognizing that mental health requires vulnerability, we will bypass impersonal channels and leverage my personal network, including my direct contacts, peer-to-peer groups, and the various students’ WhatsApp forums I am already a part of.
As the Project Coordinator, I will be responsible for:
Resource Curation: Maintaining an updated collection of verified mental health hotlines and resource links from MANI and other competent mental health service provider I come in contact with later on.
Direct Dissemination: Actively engaging with my current whatsapp network and group administrators to share the resource E-Flyer and secure buy-in for sharing these resources within their own network (students’ class and social groups).
Sustainability
This will not be a one-off project. The message will be redeployed at the beginning of every new academic semester. By continually engaging the diverse students within my existing network, we will ensure that the infrastructure for mental health resource accessibility remains sustainable. Also, the primary e-flyer will be visually refreshed every semester to keep the message new and highly engaging.
Scalable Template
This project will serve as a successful Minimum Viable Product (MVP) template for promoting mental health accessibility on Nigerian campuses. The systematic approach using direct, peer-to-peer distribution across various WhatsApp groups can be easily replicated among tertiary institutions across Nigeria, thereby supporting my vision of mental health accessibility.