Mental Health Does Not Discriminate

We recognize that mental health does not discriminate. Anyone and everyone can be affected by the mental health issues. We also recognize that everyone have the right to equal access to mental health support and care. And therefore, we ensure our mental health support and interventions are accessible to all, regardless of religion, background, nationality status and gender.

Psychosocial Support

DHRRA Malaysia has been actively involved in supporting and helping marginalized communities in Malaysia to deal with emotional and mental health problems since 2007. Up to now, we have provided counseling, as well as emotional, stress and conflict management support to nearly 50,000 member of affected communities from various walks of life and backgrounds.

Psychosocial Counseling Services through COVIDCAREMY

We also offered psychosocial counseling services to vulnerable communities through COVIDCAREMY, a crisis response initiative launched by us in March 2020 in collaboration with 20 local NGOs to assist communities affected by COVID-19. To date, DHRRA has successfully reached out and assisted more than 15,000 affected families through this ongoing initiative.

It is our aim to equip the vulnerable communities with necessary knowledge and skills to manage and enhance psychological wellbeing. By 2020, mental illness is expected to be the second biggest health problem affecting Malaysians after heart disease. According to the latest National Health and Morbidity Survey, every three in 10 adults aged 16 years and above in Malaysia suffer from some form of mental health issues.

Community members are able to seek free counseling through our Community Call Center, referrals, outreach program via mobile community unit, media and online request. We have a team of qualified multilingual psychological counselors providing assistance in English, Tamil & Bahasa Malaysia. These experts provide the counseling through face-to-face session, tele-conversation, call-back ,online session  and group-counseling as per the seekers’ convenience. The cases include depression, discordant couples, parent-child relationship issues, domestic violence, addiction, interpersonal communication, divorce, and etc. Our experts also provide follow-up-assistance make necessary referrals on case to case basis.

Unfortunately, there is still a lack of understanding on the condition especially in terms of common mental disorders, the causes and possible consequences as well as recognising the early signs of major mental problems. There is also a strong social stigma associated with mental illness, from a cultural stand-point shaped by superstitious belief and misconception. This negative perception often leads patients with mental illness to suffer in silence, often ostracized by society with little hope of acceptance let alone recovery.

To address the stigma, we conduct talks to raise the awareness of the community on psychological issues in order to equip them with knowledge and skills to face it. Moreover, we have created numerous peer-support groups and self-help groups for groups of people.