A Kenyan woman wants students to be taught mental health education the same way Physical Education (PE) is taught in schools.
Muthoni Muhu said mental health education needs to be made as common as other life-saving subjects such as PE.
Muhu has started an online petition to get Parliament to legislate that mental health should be added to school curricula.
“School curricula have ensured to take care of the physical health of students, it should do the same with mental health”
“Most adults with mental illnesses have had traumatic childhood wounds of abuse, abandonment, co-dependency, learning disabilities and developmental challenges that go unnoticed and undiagnosed as children,” she said.
Muhu said the topic of mental health needs to be normalised and it should start in school when kids are still young.
“If not, young people will not talk about their mental health, nor seek the help they need for anxiety, depression or thoughts of suicide and self-harm,” she said.
She said just as a student would seek a dentist for a toothache or an optometrist for glasses, students must feel safe to seek mental health services.
“I hope this petition will reach the relevant duty bearers and decision makers include the much-needed mental health education into the school curriculum,” Muhu added.
