People Like Us - BME Mental Health Promotion Project
The People Like Us BME mental health promotion project was launched in December 2008 at the Healthy Living Centre in Harrow.
Since then Natalie started running workshops at several sites throughout Harrow, and these include: Harrow college for ESOL students and staff tutors, the EKTA group, Northwick Park Hospital, the Sri Aurobindo Society, Over 65’s Health Fayre, African Caribbean Association, the Somali Health Fair, and the Zoroastrian Centre to name just a few.
The project also collaborated with other partners: for example at our major event at the Safari Cinema, with Chandra Shah, Open Up, and the Shift project, we showed the film ‘Open Secrets’. Around 250 people attended in mid-March, and we had a discussion with the director Azeem Khan afterwards, followed by a People Like Us workshop, and then refreshments. We are still receiving comments and feedback from this event.
People Like Us also collaborated with Harrow Council at art events at different sites across the borough. Rebecca Whitehead booked Rachael, a ceramic tile specialist who ran tile making workshops using religious motifs, and we had discussions around religion and mental well being as people worked. We displayed the tiles at the Zoroastrian Centre, and hope to have an exhibition in the near future.
The Evaluation Report, done by Forster for Change, has recently been completed, and will be presentented to the PCT during May.
What Next?
The Primary Care Trust is funding the project for another year. Natalie will be running more workshops in Harrow, on three topics:
- Religion and mental health
- Cultural diagnosis and mental health
- Women and Mental health
If you would like Natalie to run one of the workshops with your community or religious group, please get in touch with her to discuss possibilities. Her phone number is: 020 8515 7852 and her email address is n.tobert@mindinharrow.org.uk She is looking forward to hearing from you.