The British Council Bangladesh hosted the Commonwealth Scholars Engagement session on mental health on 2 October at the British Council Auditorium, Fuller Road, Dhaka. The session was organised by the Bangladesh Association of Commonwealth Scholars and Fellows (BACSAF) and supported by British Council.
In continuation of the session, the second session will be held on 16 November at Bangladesh Agriculture University, Mymensingh.
Global Mental Health Statistics says 970 million people around the world struggle with some mental illness or drug abuse, 1 in 4 people will be affected by a mental illness at some point in their lives, and 14.3% of deaths worldwide, or approximately 8 million deaths each year, are attributable to mental disorders.
A study says that the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on the mental health of the Bangladeshi population. The prevalence of depression (57.9%), stress (59.7%), and anxiety (33.7%) symptoms in the adult population is now much higher than pre-pandemic rates. Mental healthcare in Bangladesh is enormously inadequate owing to a lack of public mental health facilities, scarcity of skilled mental health professionals, insufficient financial resource distribution and societal stigma, says a report.
Commonwealth Scholarships enable talented and motivated people to attain knowledge and skills essential for sustainable development and are offered to citizens from low- and middle-income Commonwealth countries. Most scholarships are funded by the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). Since the first Commonwealth Scholarships were awarded in 1960, over 1,800 Bangladeshi students have received scholarships and fellowships.
Policymakers from the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, and BCSAF members, representatives from private and government educational institutions, healthcare institutions were also present during the session.
