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Dylan Dzenga
Youth Interactive Writer
Mental health issues have greater negative impact on young people as much as they affect adults as well.
Such issues include depression, anxiety and behavioural disorder.
Shockingly, many young people experiencing such illnesses fail to receive help even though they need a normal state of mind to help them create some form of resilience to cope with whatever life throws at them and grow to become well-shaped, healthy adults.
Masvingo is one of the few provinces advantaged with young people assisting their peers to get over mental health issues.
Masvingo Root of Development Organisation (MaRODO) is a youth led non-profit organisation majoring in civic engagement and participation.
The organisation was formed by 22-year-olds Acknowledge and Tanaka Vincent Ngatiane who saw the need to create, facilitate and implement outcome-based solutions to problems faced by youths in Masvingo province.
“Among other objectives, we facilitate mental health and psychosocial support through our professional volunteering psychologists, counsellors and peer educators,” said Acknowledge
The organisation also focuses on entrepreneurship, research, mentorship and networking.
Some of the problems fuelling mental illness include depression, stress, financial instability and relationships topping the list.
“Young people when faced with a difficult problem in life, end up taking drugs and substances. Community members, lacking knowledge about the issue also, start criticising the youths which just speeds up psychosocial issues.” Tanaka added
From last year, the organisation has managed to engage at least 1 000 youths through meet-ups and social media platforms such as WhatsApp groups where they facilitate dialogues and discussions on different issues affecting young people and how they can solve them.
Decent Mtata, one of the members said; “Community engagement is also crucial to the successful establishment of our goals, we need the support of our elders hence we have participated in clean-up campaigns that are organized by Masvingo City Council.”
MaRODO is among the very few organizations in the whole of Masvingo province that deal with mental health issues.
“Most of these organisations only operate in town or they focus on national discourse, which makes ours unique as it specifically targets the whole province, including the rural areas
“And also, being from the same province as the people we assist, we know and understand better the problems youths face and how to deal with them. There are no psychosocial support networks but as an organization, we are working towards establishing these and in the form of clubs too in schools.” Mawere explained
The organisation intends to launch a mental health campaign in the province to help people, especially those affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, who are dealing with different issues.
“We have so far, engaged Red Cross and we hope to reach out to UNICEF and other organisations that are closely linked to our organization’s objectives and we hope they can assist us to operate on large scale and cover more ground,” said Decent.
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