MHE Committee on Mental Health and Minority Ethnic Communities
The MHE Committee on Mental Health and Minority Ethnic Communities was established in 2007. It aims to raise awareness at the European level of the core themes permeating the issue of mental health and well-being of minority ethnic communities in Europe and advocate for culturally sensitive approaches and empowerment strategies as a desirable alternative or supplement to therapeutic treatment.
Objectives
Today, we are living in a world of rapid change, experiencing rapid global transformations. We also see that millions of human beings are forced to face a future so different from the life when they grew up, that few of their acquired skills are able to assist them with the new challenges.
As a result of these rapid changes, over the past few decades we have seen an increase in the number of migrants – legal as well as illegal - in most European countries. We have also witnessed increased animosity towards this part of the population, reflected in the media response to migration, and increasingly draconian asylum policy across Europe.
Whilst migration is feature of all socio-economic groups, the extreme stress and other severe social adversities that impact upon mental health and well-being tend to be experienced by particular migrant groups who constitute the bulk of the migrant population. By virtue of their economic situation, cultural differences, ethnicity and/or status as refugee/asylum seeker, such groups are perceived as undesirable by many in the host country. Responding to the mental health implications of the inter-play between migration, ethnicity, culture and status is the principal focus of this Committee.
In particular, the objectives of the MHE Committee on Mental Health and Minority Ethnic Communities are:
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To establish a cross-national exchange of effective strategies in the European Union tackling health inequalities and promoting better mental health and well-being of minority ethnic communities;
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To promote cooperation between key stakeholders and decision makers at different levels by providing examples of how such partnership can be put into action;
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To disseminate knowledge and raise awareness across Europe by addressing a multitude of interrelated social-cultural issues such as access to services, cultural and educational diversity etc.
Committee documents
Committee Fact Sheets : n°1
Composition
Chair: Marianne Kastrup, Centre of Transcultural Psychiatry, Denmark
Coordinator: MHE Secretariat
Pamela Bell, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
Tarafa Baghajati, European Network Against Racism (ENAR), Austria
Julie-Jaye Charles, Equalities National Council, UK
Sandra Grant, MHE Board member, Scotland, UK
Malgorzata Kmita, MHE President, UK
Els van Mourik, SAMAH – The voice of Young Asylumseekers, Netherlands
Espe Ngituka, South Tyneside Primary Care Trust, UK
Valeriu Nicolae, European Roma Grassroots Organisation, Romania
Raghu Raghavan, School of Health Studies, University of Bradford, UK
Ali Taghian, European Network Against Racism (ENAR), Austria
Alain Vanoeteren, Centre ULYSSE, Belgium
Marcel Vige, MIND, UK
Felicity De Zulueta, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, UK
Contact person
MHE Secretariat
Email info@mhe-sme.org
Tel +32 2 280 04 68
Fax +32 2 280 16 04