Mental Health Awareness - Start the Conversation!

Is mental health importantly? Absolutely! I guess Mental Health Awareness is something we need to bring on the table regularly and not wait for the Mental Health Awareness Week or the World Mental Health Day. This is exactly what The Global Shapers of Port-Louis in collaboration with Open University of Mauritius did as part of the Mental Health Awareness Talk series, a week and an half ago. We had a fantastic line-up of speakers and rightly so, from different disciplines. Sarvesh B. Dosooye Psychologist started the Talk and provided an insight about Mental Health. Teenah Jutton (Lecturer and Motivational Speaker) illustrated on ‘Body Image and Eating Disorders’ supported by staggering statistics and highlighted the dangers of Anorexia/Bulimia. Ravin Papiah (Executive Director of The John Maxwell Team & Coach) explained issues associated with depression. Nausheen Saumtally (Fitness Champion) highlighted the importance of physical fitness and well-being. I concluded the talk on raising awareness and improving mental health in the construction industry. As the talk concluded, all the speakers unanimously agreed that mental health issues at work can be addressed by reaching out to a wider workforce and more importantly, by letting others know that they are not alone.

Mental health is undoubtedly a global issue. Poor mental health emanates from stress, bullying, anxiety, depression, body image and loneliness and this is growing at an alarming rate. Many of us, are yet unaware of the inflicting damage that this is having on our personal as well as our professional lives. Often, we arrive at work with a whole stack of things worrying about money, health, family, mortgage etc…and subsequently, we carry all this baggage without realising the negative effect on our performance. One small way of helping colleagues is to get them talking about their ongoing issue/s and the pressure they are under and aim to get it out of their system. The key is to talk, empathise and foster a true sense of camaraderie.

In the construction industry, numerous research papers have highlighted consistently that the likelihood of construction workers/professionals on-site or off-site being affected by occupational illness is 10 times higher than those from fatal accidents on site. These result in lost working days, low productivity, low morale, tiredness, turning up to work for the sake of turning up, disputes, staff turnover and worst of all, the strain and emotional damages on relationship with loved ones. According to the Office of National Statistics Data (UK), there were circa 454 construction suicides in 2015, a dreadful statistic and no doubt, the industry has worked very hard collaboratively with numerous international institutions such as Mind, Mates in Construction amongst others to combat the issue.

I must say that mental health is a tricky one, hence we need to keep addressing it and seek help where possible and find time to keep fit! We need to be passionate about this issue and I implore others to embrace it, particularly the youth.

At the end of the talk, we had a lively and entertaining Q&A sessions and a handful of the audience shared their experiences and the non-stop enthusiastic and energised speakers finally concluded with few words of advice about breaking the stigma of mental health and cultivating a sense of belonging amongst colleagues in the workplace. Let’s keep talking for a healthier and happier workforce! #starttheconversation#