Gloria Umwali had a reflection with fellow students from the University of Rwanda that the youth, more so university students, deal with psychological problems which they don’t always get to process in the right environment.

They also observed that students as young adults lack appropriate platforms and supportive tools that can help them address the possible mental health challenges they could be facing.

When Covid-19 hit, they perceived this as the best time to create an initiative that would allow them to actively care about their mental health as students.

"Not knowing what’s ahead resulted in many students growing anxious about the future. Some used to survive off of the government’s monthly financial support (bourse) and suddenly were not anymore,” Umwali says.

Umwali believes self-awareness is key  in addressing mental health challenges.

This kind of unprecedented situation is what motivated them to go forward and launch the You Matter Initiative.

The initiative was designed for all young adults in the country, starting with university students. 

Since all founding members are from the University of Rwanda, that’s where implementation will start. The plan is to host group sessions on campuses such that students can have space to talk about mental health freely. 

Umwali says these sessions will encourage young adults to not only talk about their own experiences during this pandemic, psychologically wise, but also profit from psycho-education sessions provided by professional trainers and therapists. 

"We believe that when we realise and understand that our experiences and struggles are not unique, we feel less alone and that positions us in a receptive mode to learn about what we are going through,” she shares.

According to her, adulthood is a course with its own rights. From the teen stage up to the early stage of adulthood, we are introduced to what we might have to keep overcoming, time and time again.

"If you haven’t dealt with depression or anxiety as a teenager, for example, your early or mid-20s will most likely not spare you. The way you deal with such feelings depends on various factors; your background, personality, current support system, etc. but it will affect you either way and it will change you. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Growth is not only necessary, it’s a gift, truly,” she says.

She highlights that today’s youth are led by social media culture to measure their self-worth and by how successful they are at conforming. As a millennial, she says to have discovered that mental health can easily be influenced by the pressure to conform to whatever so one can belong. This leads to automated actions, group thinking and more that leaves minimum to no room for individuality. 

"Oftentimes, as youngsters, we end up in circles and cycles that don’t give us space, mind and heart to ask ourselves if we are indeed what we consume. So yeah, I would say that beyond self-destructive habits, some of the common things affecting our good mental health are, blind conformity and a rather limited opportunity to explore ourselves. Do I actually like this? Why don’t I relate to this popular opinion? Does this make me less valuable at all?,” she adds.

As a clinical psychology and social work student, Umwali believes that blind conformity and limited opportunity or encouragement to introspect to freely, safely and joyfully explore our inner worlds (mostly), leaves young people rather unsatisfied; hence, the fear of not belonging which is expressed through anxiety and the guilt of never belonging which gets people to isolate and show more signs of depression. 

"Self-awareness is key and that’s one of the fruits we intend to see coming out of You Matter Initiative’s activities.”

Mental health as a human issue 

According to Umwali, mental health struggles have always been existent, perhaps not as spoken about in today’s generation. 

"Our parents and grandparents have dealt with the same troubles, in their times. Poor mental health tends to result in bad habits; some resulting in dropping out of school or ending up in rehabilitation centres. It’s these consequences that brought this issue to our attention,” she reveals.

To her, poor or lack of communication is one of the main causes of mental issues, observing that people seem to have carried a ‘silent culture’ across generations as a means to feel accepted and to belong.

"Unfortunately this culture doesn’t work in our favour. That’s why our initiative aims at promoting conversations in peer groups on mental health. I want more of us, as a nation and as society, to know that mental health issues are human issues. What we come to deal with at some point in our lives is not so unique. Our individual stories can at times feel heavy for us, unprecedented and too big to be sorted out but they are not.”

Why therapy should be normalised

The stigma around mental health is one of the biggest challenges for good mental health.

"Like I said earlier, mental health issues are human issues. As humans, we all go through the same struggles at some point in our lives. Unfortunately, I am not too sure why we tend to think that ‘abnormality’ is to be avoided, kept hidden and silent.

"But what’s even ‘abnormal’ here, when we are actually all experiencing similar feelings and mental states? It’s part of our growth. We come in between our individual and collective growth by letting fear-based beliefs like stigma hinder our progress, both individually and collectively. The main hindrance, in my opinion, is actually us. Us a nation, region, continent and a species, we still need to open our eyes wider to the reality that we are the obstacle to higher understanding about how to deal with human feelings, resulting from life experiences. Mental health awareness is the gift we owe to ourselves.”

Umwali wants people to know that therapy is as okay as going to the gym, or meeting up with a best friend. Therapy is self-care and there are already various activities that we practice to take care of our mental health—that’s self-care.

Through national campaigns and community-based projects or initiatives, she believes prevailing obstacles will be overcome, noting that the more people are educated about mental health, the more they discuss about it, and the less it will be considered a ‘taboo’ topic.