October 2020 -blog entry
By Monika Broehl
CJD Frechen, Germany
With the current situation worldwide, driven by the COVID 19 pandemic, the emotional burden and consequences that many people: children, youngster, young people and old people are facing due to the world wide lockdown are not yet clear and may never be.
But it is out of question that empowerment of people with mental challenges is more than needed, since weeks of isolation is obviously not in favour of training, activities and therapies that are working on increasing self-esteem of people who are at high risks for suffering verbal and emotional abuse.
Many restrictions that the lockdown caused were shared by people with restrictions on the same level with the entire population, but others were more specific and very difficult to address and handle. That implies the disadvantages that were caused since medical and therapeutic applications had to be terminated, as well as many other various offers of assistance. Workshops for people with mental health challenges were like everything else closed for a long time, and to explain this and establish distance-learning or caring facility is more than challenging, as beside the technical equipment that is required the cognitive knowledge to get it into action is often not given. Hence the excitement after the lockdown and reopening, which has been handled differently in the partnering countries, was well monitored and discussed within the partnership, is big and we all are looking forward to the moment were the practical work of ACTitude can start or has already started. Even though we don’t know how the situation will develop and what are the next challenges we need to face. But let’s be optimistic and get started.
