The Women’s Friendly Initiative, a Non-Governmental Organisation, has engaged the University of Ilorin community ahead of the flag-off of its Collaborative Action for Mental Health Promotion Utilising Students (CAMPUS) programme in the institution.
The engagement meeting, which took place at the Board Room of the Faculty of Education, featured an expansive exposition on the subject of mental health concerns that arise among students and proffered solutions to them.
The programme tagged, CAMPUS, which is an 18-month pilot project, is focused on improving the mental health and well-being of university students.
This will be done using various integrated systems to provide timely, non-medical mental health services to the students.
Speaking on the pilot project, the Chief Executive Officer, WFI, Dr. Francis Eremutha, highlighted on the need for collaboration with the university management and stakeholders at all levels.
He said it is meant to achieve the goal of providing a mentally-stable educational climate for all students studying at the institution.
Dr. Eremutha explained that the urgency of the project stemmed from the need to curtail the increasing rate of suicide and mental health issues being recorded across educational institutions in the country.
Acknowledging the relevance of the institution, the WFI boss pointed out that the project is the first of its kind and that the institution is the first to herald the launch of the ‘CAMPUS’ programme.
The Lead Investigator for the ‘CAMPUS’ project, WFI, Dr. Salem Iyorwuese, said that those targeted for the programme are students within the age bracket of 15 to 24 years.
He added that the WFI would establish a ‘Mind and Body Clinic’, which would be the office of the initiative for handling all mental health issues related to students.
‘The project would also handle training for individuals involved in its “peer-to-peer” systems. In the course of the programme, 480 clients would have access to the peer-to-peer systems, with over 450 new mental e-course users certified and recorded.
”Also, the WFI will roll out toll-free lines with an average of at least 80 callers being attended to per interval. The programme is set to run for 18 months, after which its full operations would be handed over to the Students’ Union on Nov. 1, 2024,” Dr. Iyorwuese said.
(NAN)
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