Despite mental disorders being the leading cause of ill-health and disability worldwide, mental health awareness and its advocacy are ironically still in their infancy. For the awareness, treatment, and advocacy of such a rampant disorder to still be in its nascent period of development and implementation definitely adds fuel to the current fire that is keen to cause more damage if not attended to immediately. Factually speaking, mental health care and mental disorders are rarely spoken about. This is because such disorders and “inconveniences” are pretty loyal members of the paradox of self-stigmas and self (or) society induced shame.  

In 2017, a 13% rise was noted in mental health related conditions worldwide. Experts predict that this surge will most likely increase in the years to come as these disorders are not being treated as a bodily disorder that need medical intervention but are instead being hushed by stigmatic whispers. It is no news that mental health comes with its own added baggage of elements, consisting mainly of stigmatic whispers, supposed anathemas, and supposed shame. Contrary to what society has forced down our throats, mental health is in-fact as valid, important & necessary as physical health. Mental disorders are in-fact real diseases that require the same level of care as physical illnesses like cancer or heart conditions. 

What is mental health ?

According to the World Health Organisation, Mental health refers to “a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.” 

In laymen term, mental health refers to an individual’s cognitive, behavioural, and emotional well-being. It is all about how an individual thinks, feels, and behaves. Taking care of our mental health in every stage of our lives is crucial because it affects and helps balance all part of our life, from our relationships with friends and family to our productivity levels at jobs and schools. It has an impact on our ability to deal with stress, adapt, and address problems. It also has an impact on our ability to be happy, productive, and well-adjusted.

Why is mental health important and why must one make it a priority ?

Let me begin by stating that an individual does not necessarily have to be diagnosed with a mental disorder to care for their mental health and make it a priority. Although they are mistakenly interchanged often, poor mental health and a mental disorder are not the same thing. 

Poor mental health can be the result of stress and grief that arise from existential factors like bereavement, loneliness, poverty, financial difficulties, etc. Whereas, a mental disorder is a disorder of the human body that is caused by chemical alterations and imbalances in the brain. Although not entirely the same, mental health and mental disorders do, in-fact, have a fierce correlation. Studies show that the trauma caused by poor mental health has the power to trigger a mental disorder in individuals who are susceptible enough. This factual correlation is one of the biggest reasons that should urge an individual to take care of his/her mental health. 

Although there maybe environmental factors that play a towering role in developing mental disorders, a person’s inherited genetic susceptibility to mental disorders tops the list. An individual can never be sure of what he/she is genetically susceptible to and to what extent, this is why it is extremely crucial for everyone single human being to make mental health care their top priority. 

Apart from this, poor mental health is linked to physical health conditions. Studies have shown that individuals with poor mental health have a greater risk of conditions like heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and stroke.

Mental health is linked to a variety of social challenges on a global scale, including social inclusion, economic development, job prosperity, and human rights. 

Deepika Padukone and neuroscientist/physician Dr. Murali Doraiswamy sit down to discuss tackling the stigma surrounding mental health issues.

How can we help ?

We as a society, need more candour, more advocacy and fewer stigmatic whispers! We need to normalise the fact that the brain too can fall ill. We need to advocate normalcy in getting medical help and not shame or stereotype the ones who do. Mental health needs to be equally prioritised as physical health. We must ensure to educate ourselves and the people around us in fields that may not be of great knowledge to us if our aim is to avoid paving such poorly educated paths for our children and theirs. Fighting mental disorders is already an extremely tedious and painful journey. Let’s not make it worse by acting like catalysts to the possibly perishable stigma that claims lives time and again. 

We also need to normalise and prioritise speaking up and being kind as the human brain is not wired to handle extreme trauma. The importance of being kind goes a little further beyond morality, studies show that events like bullying, harassment, and social isolation tend to take a psychological toll on the mind and have the potential of triggering mental disorders in individuals susceptible enough. A disorder that had a chance to stay dormant for a very long time. 

The first big positive change that society should aim to see is the destigmatization of this illness. Society must, foremost, stop feeding into the stigma. They must also make a conscious effort to stop romanticising these disorders. Instead of eradicating the stigma around mental disorders, society seems to add to it. We are not only spreading a false notion about a disorder that kills, but we are also trivialising and belittling the struggles of people who actually suffer from this illness. 

People who can afford to donate must do their philanthropic bit and donate towards the well being of the mental health of the poor. The poor often carry an excessive part of the burden of mental disorders, both in terms of the risk of developing a mental condition and the lack of access to treatment. Constant exposure to highly stressful circumstances, hazardous living circumstances, exploitation, and poor health in general all contribute to the poor’s increased susceptibility. The absence of inexpensive treatment worsens the illness’s severity and debilitation, creating a vicious spiral of poverty and mental health illnesses that is hardly ever broken.

We still have a long way to go for mental disorders to get the same candour, rights, and respect as physical disorders get, but we have to start somewhere.

How can they help ?

The government must consider making strategic decisions and choices in order to bring about positive change in the acceptance and treatment of mental disorders. The Department of Health and Human Services can offer a helping hand that would benefit many if they considered implementing the following suggestions into their healthcare system : 

• Including consultation fees in insurance claims and not just hospitalisation : Solely covering hospitalisation costs is problematic and futile. Factually speaking, it’s very rare for a victim of a mental disorder to be hospitalised. Most of the time, patients do not get the care they need as they are not able to afford multiple consultation fees, as the number of consultations for a mental disorder is drastically different in comparison to the consultation for a physical one.. We all deserve to heal, but unfortunately, not everybody can afford that, and that’s exactly where the concept of insurance comes into play.

• Integrate mental health with primary care services. 

• Recognize the high prevalence of trauma, violence, and abuse in the lives of women, 

girls, and children who have been excluded from the system.

• Accelerate research on mental heath and mental disorders. 

• Increase sustainability to aid recovery. 

• Implement mental health care plans and policies in the numerous number of the countries that have no active mental health programme. 

Why seek help? 

Just like any other physical disorder, mental disorders are controllable, if not curable, with the help of medications and treatment, as they are just another ill part of the human body. Unfortunately, nearly two-thirds of people suffering from mental disorders never seek medical help from a professional. This could be due to a variety of factors such as stigma, discrimination, neglect, shame, and ignorance.

The World Health Organisation affirmatively states that over 80% of patients with schizophrenia can be relapse-free after one year of treatment with antipsychotic drugs paired combined with family involvement. Up to 60% of patients suffering from depression can recover with the right mix of antidepressant medicines and psychotherapy and up to 70% of patients with epilepsy can be seizure-free when basic, low-cost anticonvulsants are used. More than half of the disorders that annually claim numerous lives can be treated with the help of medical intervention, but only the patient can make that crucial step of deciding and agreeing to seek help. 

References : 

• https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/154543

• https://www.futurelearn.com/info/blog/world-mental-health-day

• https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/learn/index.htm 

The post Mental health matters now more than ever! first appeared on wbsdigital.

Founded by two relentlessly empowering women, Annetta and Lisa, the SaGG foundation helps re-write the future of many underprivileged Gambian girls. In The Gambia, it is estimated that one in every three girls is a victim of child marriage, which is not only a cruel violation of their human rights, but also a gender-based violation that no child should be forced to endure. The SaGG foundation is a non-profit organisation that is dedicated to educating and empowering girls and women in The Gambia in an effort to abolish child marriage and provide basic education to girls and women in an attempt to overcome poverty and gain stability.

The SaGG foundation’s digital presence is impressively substantial and broad. Their presence on various social channels extends from their own authentic website to different social media applications, namely, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Based on a cursory examination of this foundation’s social media accounts, it is safe to conclude that this foundation actively uses various platforms to connect and interact with its target audience(s).Connecting, interacting and communicating with their audience seems to be of prior importance to them. This type of impression is extremely beneficial to the foundation as it gives the audience and potential investors a little peek inside their priorities, intentions, and goals.

Social Media Listening : 

The infographic illustrated above gives us an overall audit of the SaGG foundation’s four social media channels. It illustrates various aspects of how each channel flourishes. It highlights :

• The number of followers/following

• What kind of content they post

• How often they post

• Who they follow 

• How many hashtags are being used

• What kind of visuals are being used

• Their reviews/ratings 

• Whether the comments are positive/negative

• Whether links to their websites are mentioned

• How active SaGG is on all their platforms, analysing the stories being uploaded, the way they reply to comments and queries on their posts, etc. 

The engagement rate on all four channel that includes the respective platform’s likes, comments, shares/retweets, etc. seem to be quite unsatisfactory and mediocre. There is occasionally a gaping difference with some posts receiving a sky-rocketing engagement rate of 50%+ whilst others have no engagement at all whatsoever. SaGG must evalute and consider the strategy being applied to the top posts that do well and seem to have sky-rocketing engagement rates as if the same winning strategy is applied to every one of their posts, the engagement level would demonstrate excellence and SaGG would flourish with doners and investors. 

One of the foremost sources that help critically analyse any brand’s social media presence are the channel’s engagementand its content interaction. To evaluate and analyse the reach the organisation’s top posts have, the engagement rate of top performing posts were calculated for an entire year. This analysis can also help SaGG identify what their top posts are and help them use a similar strategy for all their other posts. Posts with the highest number of engagement (likes,shares,comments,retweets,etc.) of every month were taken into account. A whole year’s worth of data was thoroughly researched, evaluated and analysed. This was done in order to be able to create graphs to tangibly track the dips and surges in the engagement. This also gives SaGG a tangible metric to track their performance over time. 

To calculate the engagement rate a simple mathematical formula was used. 

ER = The total engagement one gets (likes+shares+comments) / the total number of followers * 100.

A healthy engagement rate, according to most social media marketing professionals, is between 1% and 5%. The analysis illustrated above was applied to all for social media platforms i.e, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.  Every single comment,reaction and interactions noted and observed during the analysis was positive in nature. The only area that seemed to need improvement was for the posts and its engagement to be consistent in nature. 

Figure 4 : Analysis of the top LinkedIn posts for the last 12 months

Website Audit : 

The SaGG foundation’s website audit via SEMrush indicates that the website has 80 percent site health, which seems to be satisfactory, but there should always be room for improvement, as any even-handed critique would note. The thematic reports stated the site’s crawlability and site performance scoring 95% and 87%, respectively. Although, the site analysis did actively throw light on the sectors that could do with some degree of improvement. 

There seem to be serious errors with the website’s sitemaps, certificate name, and AMP-related issues. It is important to rectify these errors as they may affect search engine rankings and click-through rates, which would further affect website traffic. Along with this, there are a plethora of warnings relating to unminified and uncompressed JavaScript and CSS files that pop up. Meta descriptions, Broken external links and a low text-to-HTML ratio appeared to be flawed as well. If these issues remained unrectified, they could take a toll on the website’s traffic and search engine ranking.

The Competitors of the SaGG foundation :

Consumers/donors’ social media and content habits : 

The SaGG foundation’s primary focus is spread awareness about the detrimental effects of child marriage and to educate and empower girls and women in The Gambia. SaGG’s target audience comprises mainly of educated women aged between 20 and 40 who show a keen interest in women empowerment, women’s education and gender equality. Despite the fact that their Instagram audience is around 70% female and 30% male, and their Facebook audience is 48 percent female and 52 percent male, their engagement rate per post is quite identical. The highest content reach appears to be for the age range of 20-40 year olds, who also happen to be their target audience, across two of their platforms, Instagram and Facebook.

The table illustrated below summarises the approximate percentage of users from various cities across two platforms :

Despite focusing on a topic that is widely open to criticism from misogynistic extremists and critics, the SaGG’s consumer interaction on all their socials was always noted to be positive, encouraging and thankful.  Right now, the current social media trends revolve around makings reels consistently, using appropriate hashtags, making short IGTV videos, inclusivity, diversity, voicing opinions, standing for a good cause and collaborating with people with have a broad social media presence. Using these tactics and trends appropriately will really help boost a page’s engagement and interaction. 

Recommendations : 

Reference Links : 

● https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-interaction/

● https://www.sendible.com/insights/social-media-for-nonprofits

● https://www.socialinsider.io/blog/engagement-rate/ 

● https://www.semrush.com/siteaudit/campaign

● https://twitter.com/saggfoundation

● https://www.instagram.com/saggfoundation/

● https://www.saggfoundation.org/

● https://www.facebook.com/SponsoraGambianGirl

● https://www.linkedin.com/in/sagg-foundation-a8a67a195/

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