Lost minds – Czech Republic (IFMSA-CZ)

Name of the activity: Lost minds

Country/NMO: Czech Republic (IFMSA-CZ)

Program: Mental Health

Type of the activity: Campaign

General description:

Lost Minds is an exibition for public about Mental Health Illnesses. Our aim was to introduce an exhibition about mental illnesses (9 specific diagnosis – ADHD, OCD, Alzheimer disease, bipolar affective disorder, Asperger syndrome, panic disorder, mental anorexia, paranoid schizophrenia, depression). The last panel is devoted to the methods and ways how to help your friends or relative and where to find help for yourself with important contact numbers. We prepared also a leaflet with the information about help, that every visitor can take home.
We started in Brno, the Czech Republic, and we want to continue to at least 10 other Czech cities and towns. IFMSA CZ has local committees in 6 cities and our university has a university centre in another town. We created panels which consist of graphics depicting each diagnosis, short clinical description of the disease which is easy to understand also for the public and a story of a person who suffer from the mental illness. The aim of the story is to show the public, that mentally ill people live normal lives.
We started our campaign in the middle of June and we plan to continue through the upcoming school year(s). We have created an indoor version and right now we are planning and searching for a system, that could be displayed outdoors on different kinds of festivals etc. The exhibition is open for public. We also invited high school teachers to come to observe the panels with their classes.

Focus area:

Mental Health advocacy and public awareness

Problem statement:

Eradicating the stigma and social distancing of people with mental illness must be a top public health priority in the Czech Republic in order to improve social status of the people who suffer from mental illness and to encourage them not to feel shame and to speak about it publicly.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

The target group of our campaign is general public. We want to inform people about mental illnesses and give them also a piece of advice what to do and where to find help in case they need it. We also want to encourage people who suffer from mental illness not to feel shame and not to be afraid to speak about their problems with their families or to visit a specialist.

The students who take part on this project can learn more about this often neglected topic, meet different interesting people who can share their stories with them. The coordinators improve their skills in organisation, time management, teamwork, PR, feedback providing and communication in the team and also with the public via social media.

Objectives and indicators of success:

Prepare basic information for posters about 9 most common mental health diseases (MHD)
a) Do research on common MHD and choose 9 most common by the 1st of January
b) Write public-friendly articles on each diseases (9 in total) each one of the lenghth of 500 words by the 1st of March
c) Manage free visits during April at the Dept of Psychiatry to get stories from patients living with these 9 MHD. To be agreed by the 15th of March by head of the department
d) Write a story of patient living with MHD for each disease in the lenght of 400 words by the 1st of May
e) Ask my high-school teacher to correct these 18 articles gramatically, to be agreed by the 1st of May, to be done by the 10th of May f) Send all 18 articles to graphic on 15th of May to put them together with pictures
Reach 6 Czech towns with MHD exhibition within a year to make bigger impact:
a) Choose 6 most relevant cities with appropriate space for free by the 1st of July
b) Contact LPOs in those cities to ask them for help with preparation and propagation of the exhibition in their town by the 5th of July c) Write max. 5 page handover for Local Coordinator of the project by the 15th of July
d) Manage cost-effective transportation of the exhibition from town to town by the 31st of July

Methodology:

We count on our previous experience from another activities (2 years as LPO) and help from other NGO (stated in next questions). We had meeting every 2 weeks to be sure to keep DLs and formed a group chat to discuss everything. We divided tasks between each other to prevent Burn out. After each exhibition in city there´s a debriefing and evaluation meeting to move forward. Next thing is out motivation to raise the awareness about MHD as we´re interested in this topic and consider it as a big social issue. What is more, we were supervised by the head of the department of Psychiatry and NGOs working in this field to have everything evidence-based.

Plans for evaluation:

– number of cities reached
– likes and seen at fb/instagram posts
– written evaluations from visitors in visitors book

Lost Minds is an exibition for public about Mental Health Illnesses. Our aim was to introduce an exhibition about mental illnesses (9 specific diagnosis – ADHD, OCD, Alzheimer disease, bipolar affective disorder, Asperger syndrome, panic disorder, mental anorexia, paranoid schizophrenia, depression). The last panel is devoted to the methods and ways how to help your friends or relative and where to find help for yourself with important contact numbers. We prepared also a leaflet with the information about help, that every visitor can take home.
We started in Brno, the Czech Republic, and we want to continue to at least 10 other Czech cities and towns. IFMSA CZ has local committees in 6 cities and our university has a university centre in another town. We created panels which consist of graphics depicting each diagnosis, short clinical description of the disease which is easy to understand also for the public and a story of a person who suffer from the mental illness. The aim of the story is to show the public, that mentally ill people live normal lives.
We started our campaign in the middle of June and we plan to continue through the upcoming school year(s). We have created an indoor version and right now we are planning and searching for a system, that could be displayed outdoors on different kinds of festivals etc. The exhibition is open for public. We also invited high school teachers to come to observe the panels with their classes.