Mental Health Matters for Children, Teachers and Communities Impacted by Brutal Armed Conflicts, Climate Disasters and Forced Displacement

World Mental Health Day Statement by Education Cannot Wait Director Yasmine Sherif

Children and adolescents should not need to ever experience the excruciating pain of conflicts, climate change and refuge. However, for as long as we fail to safeguard their rights – physical and legal protection – they will continue to suffer before our eyes. It is a suffering that is soul-shattering.

Fleeing your burnt-out villages and bombed-out towns, seeing your family members executed or disappear beneath the rubble of their home, or being forced into child marriage and trafficking – these are all causing trauma. If not addressed on time, this will inevitably haunt the affected children and youth during their lifetime and for generations to come.

On World Mental Health Day, we must remember the crucial role that education plays in addressing these abnormal experiences through mental health and psychosocial services for students, teachers and their communities. Without healing the victims of these abnormal and horrendous life-changing events, no child can concentrate and learn, nor will it be easy for teachers to encourage and empower their students.

Mental health matters. At Education Cannot Wait (ECW), a global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, we make mental health and psychosocial services a top-priority. Healing is essential for every affected child and teacher in order to achieve learning outcomes.

In 2023, 72% of ECW’s Multi-Year Resilience Programmes reported increases in children’s and adolescent’s social and emotional learning, and over 75,000 teachers (69% female) were trained to recognize and address mental health-related shocks and stressors among learners. This vital work for children’s well-being takes many different directions depending on culture, context and capacity.

In crises affected countries like Afghanistan, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Nigeria, Syria and Uganda, just to mention a few of the over 40 countries benefiting from ECW’s investments, our partners work together in constructing safe learning spaces, providing teacher training and incentives, ensuring nutritious meals in schools – all in combination with well-designed mental health and psychosocial support.

Every child, adolescent and teacher struggling to survive amidst the most unspeakable horrors of death and destruction, flight and dispossession, will naturally be mentally affected. Some will be suicidal, others will be unable to concentrate, many will lose hope and plunge into depression, emotionally stunted and scarred for life. Mental health services and continuous psychosocial support are therefore essential to recovering some stability, concentration and resolve. Thanks to mental health and psychosocial services being an integral part of their education, they can turn their experience into resilience and revive their hope. This is how they  achieve results against all odds.