Healing through arts and sports:
The following depicts IOM Mozambique’s activities within Pemba City, Cabo Delgado province on how children affected by conflict since 2017 are overcoming distress caused by traumatic experiences and slowly adapting to their new lives whilst integrating into a different environment in host communities. IOM sees Artistic and Cultural Activities, Sports and Play, and Counselling and Support Groups to establish a sense of normalcy.
• Sport and play are fully part of the cultural and relational experience of a community and can contribute to protecting and promoting the mental health and psychosocial well-being of individuals and groups, across genders, ages and social statuses.
• Sport and play are deeply rooted activities that are always present, in some form, in any community. As they are a part of learned interactions and behaviours, and easy to reproduce, they are often spontaneously reproduced even in emergency and displacement settings.
• They are therefore a powerful means to support interactions among community members in emergencies, as well as an entry to engage communities and their subgroups.
• Sport and play are essential for the physical and psychological development of children since, through playing, children express and externalize in a safe environment, learn how to connect and cooperate with others, and can give a symbolic structure to their experiences.
• Games are also spaces for exploration and problem-solving, and educational tools for adults. In this sense, sport and play can help individuals to develop their resilience.
Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) in IOM
IOM provides direct MHPSS to migrants, emergency affected and host communities and has designed and implemented capacity-building initiatives in various aspects of MHPSS and population mobility for humanitarian, law enforcement, social welfare, educational, cultural, health, mental health and psychosocial professionals. IOM provides MHPSS throughout its programs, including in:
• Emergency response and humanitarian activities.
• Community stabilization, social cohesion and peace building.
• Direct assistance to victims of trafficking, migrants going back to the country of origin and other vulnerable migrants.
• Reintegration support to former combatants.
• Strengthening health systems and responses in migration crises;
• Promoting the consideration of cultural diversity in mental health care delivery;
• Mainstreaming MHPSS into migrants’ protection;
• Addressing the psychosocial components of reparation of victims.
• Addressing the psychosocial components of reparation of victims.
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