Collaboration on Mental Health

Dianova joins the Executive Committee of the NGO Committee on Mental Health in New York

mental-health

Dianova has recently embraced the opportunity to join the Executive Committee of the NGO Committee on Mental Health (CMH) in New York, one of the thematic forums for organizations with consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The CMH fosters collaboration between NGOs from all parts of the globe, aiming to include mental health matters in the international agenda. In this field, the Committee has played an important role in coordinating advocacy activities and in hosting monthly events on crosscutting topics to address mental health issues in relation to broader contexts.

Mental health care is a vital bone of Dianova’s programs. Aside from the direct and indirect effects of the topic in the Network’s programs on addiction treatment, in Uruguay and in Canada, for instance, Dianova also provides care for individuals facing more specific conditions such as dual diagnoses (addition and psychiatric illnesses) and with Autism Spectrum Disorders, respectively. Thus, Dianova stepping up for an active role in the CMH represents an important step in the organization’s restless efforts to update and strengthen policies and measures addressing cases of mental health and substance abuse.

Last year, mental health and the prevention and treatment of substance abuse were for the first time included in the global development agenda. The display of these topics in Goal 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals demonstrates the United Nations’ member states recognition ofthe subject as a global health priority. At the same time, it gave individuals and organizations another tool to fight for adequate measures in these fields. Despite of this acknowledgement,though, there is still a long way to go until we see these topics receiving the necessary attention in the global agenda.

With that in mind, Dianova and the CMH will together keep pushing for the improvement of mental health care standards and for the implementation of essential public health measures in treatment and rehabilitation of substance abusers and other forms of addiction. Besides, they will continue to advocate for the promotion of psycho-social well-being in broader contexts of poverty, violence, environment and human rights.

The Committee on Mental Health Annual Gala

In October 21 the CMH will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a Gala at the United Nations. The Nobel Prize in Medicine, Eric R. Kandel, MD, will be the honorable keynote speaker at the event. In the heart of the UN, the Gala will bring stakeholders and public authorities together, and will raise awareness for the need to ponder mental health concerns in the implementation of all of the Sustainable Development Goals.