2023-05-11 09:05:37
ACEFEP launches the campaign ‘Without prejudice-off’, against prejudices and stereotypes around mental health
The campaign is made up of several street actions, with which it is intended to change the social imaginary about mental health problems and make them look positive.
The Ceuta Mental Health Association (ACEFEP) has carried out a campaign to raise awareness about the prejudices and stigma surrounding people with mental health problems.
Under the title ‘No bias-off’, The objective of this initiative is to make mental health visible to society in general and “put aside those prejudices and stereotypes that we have”as explained by Miguel Sánchez, the association’s social educator, in statements to the newspaper El Faro de Ceuta. “Many times, it is not so much the symptoms of people with a mental health problem, but what society thinks of them that makes them feel worse,” says Sanchez.
For this reason, with this type of activity, “change the social imaginary about mental illness and make it look positive”adds the social educator.
According to this newspaper, the campaign consists of various street actions; In addition to an information stand, installed on the Paseo del Revellín in the city of Ceuta, ACEFEP has carried out the initiative ‘Without tags’, in which a mannequin was presented and people were asked to visit it as if it were someone with a mental health problem; later, the person was invited to stand behind the mannequin and look in a mirror. Those clothes were labeled with prejudices and stereotypes that society has towards people with mental health problems, “like that they are unpredictable, that they are sensitive people or flat in their expression”adds Sanchez. Behind the clothes appears the label with the correct explanation of that stigma with the aim of demystifying it.
On the other hand, the action ‘Who is who‘ consisted of presenting a series of photographs of people and asking people which of them they thought had a mental health problem. «The objective of this activity was for people, through these images, to choose a person and that is where the topic of prejudices, stigmas, why they choose a type of person is dealt with… And an explanation is made of those prejudices and stigmata”, details the social educator.
Lastly, members of the Committee for Mental Health in First Person carried out surveys of the population, asking them to write a prejudice about mental health problems on a piece of paper, and put it in an urn.
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