Life should mean life

Disability and mental health: a developing-world perspective - 2003

Disability is bigger than you think

In most developing nations, disability is very much a hidden fact of life. Adults and children living with disabilities (many of which would be treatable or preventable in the West) number in their uncounted millions. Most are hidden away because of stigma – traditional religious beliefs often blame the individual or their families for their disability, usually attributed to sins in this or a previous life. Disability is sign that you or someone close to you has done wrong, and so is shameful, and disabled adults and children are kept hidden away.

In some cultures, where there is a religious obligation to give to the disabled, some children are deliberately crippled at a young age to ensure they can give a family or a gang a regular source of income from street begging. In other impoverished households where every adult and child must work to bring in an income, disability means someone is unable to pull their weight and are seen as a burden on the family. There is no point in educating a disabled child, and the healthy children at school or in work will get fed first when food is available. Disability means no education, poor nutrition and no hope. Thus, in many developing nations, disability means isolation and poverty, with no prospects of escape or improvement.

Likewise, those with disabilities are often the last to hear the gospel – they are unlikely to attend churches or hear street preachers. But Jesus Himself made the disabled one of His priorities when He was preaching – He went out of His way to find the outcast and invisible people and bring them hope (e.g. Luke 14: 1-24). The disabled are one of the least reached people groups on Earth – surely the Church is all the poorer for not having them as part of its wider body?

However, the story does not have to end here. Work in community based rehabilitation helps challenge these attitudes, gives disabled people the chance to discover the abilities that they do posses, and even regain functions that had been assumed lost forever. Education, creative income generating projects using the skills of disabled adults and children, and increased support for families of people with disabilities all can change lives previously trapped in a cycle of poverty and hopelessness. Many Christian hospitals, schools and churches throughout the developing world are following this model to make a massive impact in the lives of people with disabilities, and to challenge the prevailing religious, social and cultural attitudes to disability.

Mental health is not all in the mind

Mental Health problems, like physical and learning disabilities, can be highly stigmatised in many cultures, leading to similar problems with poverty and exclusion. In addition, some societies see some mental health problems as being spiritually caused – often relating problems like schizophrenia to spirit possession. Some will exploit those with such conditions as soothsayers or holy men/women, others persecute them and further isolate or even kill them. In most poor nations, meeting the immediate physical health needs of individuals and communities is enough of a struggle, that the mental health needs are easily forgotten. But after all, why would someone living off a municipal garbage tip in Manila, with no hope of educating his children or even of feeding them properly (let alone getting them treated by a doctor when they fall ill), any less prone to depression than anyone living in our own society? Christian responses to health seek to be as ‘wholistic’ as possible – not isolating physical health needs from spiritual or mental or social needs.

Refugees: The Forgotten Nation

According to United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), there are nearly twenty million refuges throughout the world today. But in addition, there are maybe another fifteen million who are living as refugees within their own countries (so-called Internally Displaced People). All are fleeing the Four Horsemen – war, famine, plague and death. These come in many, all too familiar forms:

The forty odd wars and internal conflicts that rage across the globe today (most never make it into our newspapers or TV).
The widespread famines affecting Southern Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of South and East Asia.
Plague, in the form of AIDS, Malaria and TB, claims tens of millions of lives yearly.
Political oppression and persecution threaten many people with death if they do not flee their homelands.

Add to that earthquakes, floods, volcanoes and a myriad other natural disasters and you can see why there are so many millions living displaced from their homes.

Refugees have the most complex physical and mental health needs on earth. Traumatic experiences that caused them to flee in the first place (the brutal murder of parents, rape, torture, massive natural disasters, etc), the trauma of leaving home, family, job, culture and language behind. Depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and many other mental health needs are big problems for refugees. Many are also physically disabled, having been injured in war, by torture or in natural disasters.

Many are badly treated in the places that they flee to – stuck in transit camps, treated with suspicion by local populations and officials. Refugees are mainly confined to Asia and Africa, but a small but significant number make it to the UK.

Information and resources:

Disabilities:

Through The Roof: Aims to make the Christian message of salvation through Jesus Christ available worldwide to disabled people and those in their immediate circle.

Director: Paul Dicken PO Box 353, Epsom, Surrey, KT18 5WS Phone 01372 749955; Fax 01372 737040 www.throughtheroof.org

Mental Health

http://www.globalconnections.co.uk/ contains papers on the Christian responses to mental health issues in the developing world.

Refugees

The Refugee Highway Partnership - seeking to equip churches and mission agencies to reach out to the world 35 million refugees.

Mark Orr, Co-Facilitator, Refugee Highway Partnership, (mark@globalmission.org) Stephen Mugabi, Co-Facilitator, Refugee Highway Partnership,(mugabi@infocom.co.ug)

Action points

Pray for those ministering to the mentally ill and disabled in the developing world, in Jesus’ name - for strength to deal with hard situations, for wisdom to deal with cultural barriers and misunderstanding, and compassion to show a different way to care for those with stigmatising problems.
Find out if there are any refugee communities in your area - and find out ways that you can minister to them and support the health professionals working with them.
Contact some of the agencies listed on this fact sheet and see if there are ways that you can get involved in supporting their work.

Steve Fouch

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