By Salwa Samir "An addict is an impolite and depraved person." "Someone diagnosed with depression is an impious person." "The schizophrenic is a maniac and a swindler." Listed above are the misconceptions Upper Egyptians have about mental disorders, which were corrected at an awareness campaign launched last month in Qena by the Ministry of Health's General Secretariat for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment. The campaign is called "Upper Egypt is Not Distant". It started in Qena governorate, on the east bank of the Nile, north of Luxor, and will go to other Upper Egyptian governorates later this year."Upper Egyptian people have a different culture from that of Cairenes. They are shy to speak about psychological disease and substantial effort is needed to fight their notion that mental health is a stigma," Dr Dalia el-Sayed, the coordinator of the awareness campaign, told the Egyptian Mail. "With the awareness campaign we can break the barrier between them and psychological health and correct the misconceptions by talking openly about them," el-Sayed added.The awareness campaign was run by four psychologists and seven social workers who held seminars about psychological diseases such as depression, schizophrenia, anxiety and addiction. "An ex-addict came with us to give a seminar about his experience and how he overcame addiction through will-power," she said. According to a study conducted by the General Secretariat for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment last year, approximately one per cent of the Egyptian population suffers from schizophrenia. According to the latest estimates issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO), more than 300 million people in the world are now living with depression, only 10 per cent of them are receiving treatment out of fear of the stigma. The WHO said that suicide was the second leading cause of death in 15 to 29-year-olds. The campaign also organised a 30-minute marathon in which children and young people from Qena took part. After the marathon, pamphlets were distributed detailing all the services provided by the General Secretariat for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment and providing the number of its hotline: 08008880700, which any one can call and all questions will be answered by psychiatrists. "The people's feedback after the campaign was astonishing and many people, especially teenagers were asking for advice via the hotline," she said. This campaign is the first to be run by the Ministry of Health. But other campaigns have been run by the people of Qena themselves. In 2015, Wafaa Orabi, a psychological health researcher based in Qena, launched a campaign entitled "Your Mental Health is Important to Us." She invited psychiatrists from different universities in Egypt to give seminars and raise people's awareness of psychological disease. "I studied at Ain Shams University in Cairo and realised that the Cairenes' awareness of mental illness was better than that of the people of Qena, because of the efforts made by the Ministry of Health's General Secretariat for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment," Orabi told the Egyptian Mail. "Mental illness in Qena and perhaps all Upper Egyptian cities is taboo. There is an urgent need to raise awareness of mental illness," she added. Orabi blamed the media for the misconceptions people had about the illness. "For example, the Cinema has portrayed the suffering of addicts in the recovery stage. Some films portray psychopaths as being crazy," she said. At one of her seminars, which was attended by about 300 men and women, a secret checkup revealed that 100 of them were addicts and were diagnosed as being mentally ill. "We heard of many suicide cases in Qena and the nearby governorates; and murders are committed because of depression. We really need urgent help," Orabi added. She contacted the Ministry of Health asking them to organise an awareness campaign in Qena, and they responded with their campaign "Upper Egypt is Not Distant"."The ministry's campaign has made us feel close to the help we need and the ministry can reach us and support us through its staff and via the hotline." she said.
