Supported by AstraZeneca Step Up! Global Grants programme, our “Sports for Health (S4H)” project used the power of sports alongside using buffering hypothesis and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) as tools to raise awareness and reduce stigma related to mental illnesses among 2887 vulnerable adolescents and youth in Nakivale Refugee Settlement and surrounding rural host communities. The project used structured sports activities to build emotional resilience and coping skills and to strengthen social connection and belonging among refugee and non-refugee adolescents and youth. Structured sports activities were also used to improve self-esteem and identity and also helped to regulate mood and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression among the vulnerable refugee adolescents and youth in the refugee camps and rural host communities.
Through using sports platforms, we established side health clinics alongside the pitches to support mental health education and assessment among refugee and non-refugee adolescents and youth. Through working with Village Health Teams (VHTs) and volunteers from public health facilities, we were able to screen 1868 adolescents and youth for their mental health, 78 were found to have minor mental disorders and 22 with major mental disorders and were all actively linked to public health facilities to received further screening/diagnosis, care and support. The beneficiaries who were diagnosed with minor mental illnesses were involved in our monitored sports activities by our project sport for development officers and the mental health nurses. In the middle of project implementation, 50 young sports coaches comprised of refugee and non-refugee youth were trained and equipped with appropriate trainer of trainees (T.O.T) skills to continue using sports to improve on the physical and mental health of adolescents and youth in the refugee camp and in the rural host communities. These young sports coaches are continuing to work with government health systems through working with Village Health Teams (VHTs)/Community Health Workers (CHWs) and public health facilities to promote mental health awareness among the youth in the refugee and the rural host communities.
The implementation of this project helped to improve on the community based mental health awareness, screening and strengthened referral systems for those refugee and non-refugee adolescents and youth who were diagnosed with mental illnesses to access early mental health care and treatment. It also helped the beneficiaries to challenge and change unhelpful cognitive distortions and behaviours, improved their emotional regulation and helped them to develop personal coping strategies in order to alter unwanted behaviour patterns or treat mood disorders such as depression that was common among adolescents and youth.
Mental illnesses are common and increasing among adolescents and the youth in the refugee camps. The wars and the long term conflicts that these adolescents and youth go through in their countries have caused distress and post-traumatic stress disorders. Also, the conditions faced in the refugee camps including lack of enough food, poor health standards, poor education standards, discrimination, poor living conditions among others have led many migrant adolescents and youth to get stressed, depressed, change their moods hence developing chronic or long term psychosis and thoughts over time hence developing mental health illnesses.
Also, Isingiro District where this project was implemented is a rural vulnerable and transitory district to The United Republic of Tanzania. The district is located in the dry cattle corridor with high levels of food insecurity, poverty and high HIV prevalence rate. The high HIV prevalence rates have also led to many women being widowed and many families being headed by adolescents and youth.
The above conditions plus other hardships in the daily standards of living among the district’s rural vulnerable populations have escalated on mental health illnesses among adolescents and youth. In addition, the negative cultural norms and beliefs in this district have also affected majority of the populations to seek mental health screening and treatment, many people with mental health illnesses have been stigmatized and discriminated and they take those ones with mental health illnesses as being “bewitched”.
The use of our traditional sports such as football, netball, sack racing, blindfold race, rope pulling (tag of war) among others in our project has helped to promote a lot of excitement among participating beneficiaries. Excitement during sports activities played an important role in improving the mental health of refugee and non-refugee adolescents and youth in rural communities by influencing their emotions, brain chemistry, social connections, and personal development. The excitement achieved through sports boosted their positive emotions, reduced stress and tension, improved their self-esteem and confidence, strengthened social connections among refugee and non-refugees and also enhanced their focus and mental resilience.
