What We Do
WE LISTEN, ADVISE AND REFER
Women Support Initiative (WSIF) Forum is a woman led online platform that has been providing various psychosocial services from 2018. This community aims to create awareness about psychosocial health, social issues, promote wellbeing and selfcare among the women of Bangladesh for the last three years. In 2018, WSIF received a small fund called Edward M Kennedy (EMK) for public service and arts grant provides for those Bangladeshi people and institution, who are working on volunteering activities, women empowerment, education and social development etc.
Bangladesh society and its family environment are highly stigmatised, which is not conducive for a woman to share mental health issues comfortably. They are not necessarily aware about the symptoms of the common mental illnesses and when or where to seek care. Hence, we started WSIF in order to raise awareness and improve the health care seeking behaviour of the women in terms of mental health by creating a safe community online.
WSIF is a noble initiative that solely works for the women mental health in Bangladesh and extremely well accepted by the women community within these three years.
It conducts public awareness sessions on various mental health issues, training volunteers as psychosocial supporters. WSIF has a social media women’s club named “Women for each other” where women share and exchange views with each other, causing an increased level of understanding about issues affecting women in society enabling them towards empowerment.
The common topics of the mental health issues that WSIF discusses are depression, anxiety, stress, self-care, socialisation, relationship issues, conflict resolution etc. The founder who is a mental health researcher and all the lead team members who are acade,mically trained, listen to the women and refer them to the appropriate mental health experts. Currently, this platform has more than 50,000 members on social media platforms. In this Covid19 crisis, WSIF has been posting different mental health awareness messages, conducting regular webinars by the experts, providing free psychosocial first aid to the women and online consultations with the psychologists and psychiatrists etc. Currently we have about 50 personal counseling sessions ongoing.
Vision
To contribute in developing Bangladesh as a country, where everyone recognises the importance of mental health.
Mission
- Creating mass awareness regarding mental health
- Improving health care seeking behaviour in terms of mental health particularly amongst women
- Reducing the stigma associated with seeking mental health care.
Activities
- Arranging awareness seminars about different mental health and wellbeing issues
- Developing a pool of volunteers as mental health activists
- Providing mental health first aid by experts and psychosocial supporters through online
- Need based mental health counselling (online & in person): Mass counseling and Individual counseling
- Referring clients to appropriate experts based on the need
- Supporting women by establishing a social media platform “Women for each other” which has been a great source of assurance and inspiration for
- Brainstorming for new research and service initiatives for strengthening mental health care system in Bangladesh
What WSIF has been doing for the last four years
- WSIF has conducted 23 public mental health awareness sessions
- Our senior psychologists provided Personal Support Session to about 10-15 people every month over the last four years.
- WSIF team regularly listened to the clients and referred them to appropriate experts for mental health care
- WSIF trained 30 team members as Psychosocial Supporters
- About 1800 health education messages regarding wellbeing were written and posted by WSIF team members
- WSIF page and “Women for Each” Other group has more than 50000 followers
- In COVID 19 crisis: Psychiatrists and psychologists are providing online consultation mostly for free, regular educative live sessions and daily awareness messages etc. Currently we have about 50 clients who are availing personal counselling session
