PERSONAL HYGIENE FOR WOMEN (Part 8 of 8) Mental Health Hygiene

Introduction (5 minutes)

• Welcome the participants
• Remind the participants of the purpose of the course (the general objective, the number of sessions, the expected outcome)
• Introduce today session (objective and how long it will be)

Ice-breaking game (10 minutes)

·       Make sure there is space for all participants to walk around without bumping into anything.

·       Instruct participants to walk in the space. The participants must not run or touch each other. When the facilitator claps their hands, the participants must stop. The facilitator will clap twice to indicate that walking can start again.

·       After two minutes of walk and stop, give some new instruction to the participants. The facilitator will say “now the floor is like …” and participants should demonstrate the emotions and movements they would exhibit if that was reality. For example, in reaction to: “now the floor is filled with glue”, participants should walk as if they were in a pot of glue.

·       Try to change up the environment to allow participants to explore different emotions like: “Now the floor is: hot sand, thorns, flowers, chocolate…”. The facilitator can create new ideas. Keep doing it for five minutes, and change regularly the type of floor so the participants can express a large range of emotion.

Main activity (70 minutes)

Part 1 – Review of last workshop (5 minutes)

Show them the picture that they drew in the last workshop and ask them if they remember what we discussed in our last workshop. Encourage everyone to participate.

Part 2 – What is mental health (5 minutes)

·       Explain: Mental health as mental well-being in which an individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his or her community. In this positive sense, mental health is the foundation for individual well-being.

Part 3 – Relate mental illness with hygiene (5 minutes)

·       Explain: Mental health hygiene is just as important as taking care of your physical self. Think about a day when we are depressed/sad, there are so many mental blocks. We feel tired and exhausted to do anything, let alone taking personal care. We feel so low that we do not feel like taking shower (not for 1 day/2 day, for a whole week maybe) or brushing our teeth. We are even forgetful to comb our hair. But not taking shower makes our head feel heavier and we do not feel fresh. As a result, we do not feel like going outside our house and socialize with people. The idea of meeting people irritates us and thus, we have a tendency of confining ourselves within the walls of our home/room. Therefore, not maintaining basic hygiene, we feel more depressed as it affects our mental health.

·       Show picture 7.1 and explain the 3 scenarios. The descriptions are added below the picture.

Part 4 – Ways to stay mentally healthy (15 minutes)

Think positively: In this part of the session, engage the participants in the following activity which will help them to think positively.

• Tie the two ends of the rope
• Ask everyone to hold the rope
• Next, tell them to close their eyes and ask them to pass the rope in a way so that it goes in a circle.
• One facilitator has to say STOP at one point and everyone will stop passing the rope.
• The person who will be holding the knot has to reply to the question “why are you feeling lucky today?”

(the answer can be anything, such as I feel lucky because I am alive and breathing. As a facilitator, we have to encourage them)

• Again, everyone closes eyes and starts passing the rope.
• This time, the last person who shared his/her reason to feel lucky today will ask to stop. (This way the game continues until everyone in the circle has a chance to express what s/he dislikes
• When everyone is done sharing, ask everyone to clap.
• Explain the activity, such as, reflecting on what makes us happy, or grateful, etc. We have acknowledged that we have things that make us happy. Even if it is a small thing, it can help us to consider things differently and improve our mental health.

Now ask them to identify what else they can do, such as:

1. Socialize: meeting with others and sharing the small things help to release stress and relax
2. Taking proper sleep and rest: our body also needs rest and keeping that in mind we need proper rest and sleep
3. Proper food and water: need to have a balanced diet and drink enough water

(at this point it will be great if any participants can relate their learning from the nutrition workshop)

Engage in activities we like and make us feel good. Coming to the IDB Centre, using women’s spaces is a good way to enjoy ourselves and make us feel good.

Part 5 – Light exercise/yoga/breathing (15 minutes)

Show the English – No Limit Generation – Calming Coherent Breath and Movement from the folder Psychological support (English & Rohingya) from the Ideas Cube and ask everyone to do it.  Translate/explain the video by taking pauses.

 

·   Now relate how doing light exercises like this ensures regular blood flow all over our body, also body movements are good to keep us strong and active.

 

Part 6 – Evaluation (25 minutes)

·       Explain: At the end of the course, we always do a small test to make sure that everybody understood the course. This is now the test time. It will be simple questions on what we learned. It will be an individual test and you will have to answer some questions.

Evaluation

1. What is the importance of personal hygiene?

Expected Answer: Maintaining personal hygiene allows us to have better health and mind. Keeping our body clean helps us to prevent illness and so, we are less likely to fall sick. As a result, we feel good about ourselves and our mind stays cheerful and relaxed. In this way, personal hygiene helps us to take better care of our bodies and mind.

2. What practices can we do to ensure our personal hygiene?

Expected Answer: Washing hands with soaps, washing clothes with detergent, taking shower, drinking water, eating a balanced diet, physical exercise, etc.

3. True or False

Guidance: Mention the statement and ask the participant if it is true or false. Ask them to explain their answer. In case anyone made a mistake, provide the explanation, and make him/her understand one more time.

1. Our mental health is not related to personal hygiene.

Expected Answer: False

Explanation: Maintaining personal hygiene allows us to take better care of our body which also helps our mental health as we feel good about ourselves.

2. Drinking water is part of maintaining personal hygiene.

Expected Answer: True

Explanation: We lose water from our bodies when we work. Lack of water makes our body tired. So, drinking water helps to have balanced water fluids in our body. Also, it prevents from having smelly body odor.

3.Females should not do any exercise during their period.

Expected Answer: False

Explanation: Females should do light exercises during their period as it helps to relieve pain.

 

 

Conclusion (5 minutes)

• Thank the participants for their involvement and concentration during the session.
• Summarize what was learned during the session (how to be mindful about mental health)
• Collect feedback from the participants by asking questions like: “Do you feel like you learn something during the session?” “Do you think this new knowledge can be useful to you?”
• Inform the participants that this was the last workshop of the course, which is now over. Thank all of them for their regular attendance, and invite them to visit the Ideas Box center to discover more resources.