Spirituality and Peace Programme

THE SPIRITUALITY PROJECT
This project ventured into ways, through which spirituality and religion fosters overall state of individual and social wellbeing. It specifically identifies prerequisites of healing, the actors in the healing process, efficacy of healing, and sustainability of wellbeing. The outcome of this paper is based on an in-depth discussion with 9 key spiritualists (6 males and 3 females), and workshops (3) and experiences from the interactions with Muslim, Christian and Buddhist communities.
There is an answer to human problems amounting to ill-health. There has to be faith from the un-well party seeking good health. When the faith of the ill-person meets with the faith of interceder, a powerful call of healing powers or spirit is invoked. The healing spirit maintains presence in the life of the now healthy person. Healing efficacy is determined by the strength of faith. Spiritual healing is involves emotional healing, mental cleansing, and care and support of the physical body, with effort of the individual and sought care and support of expert members of the community. The person has a responsibility of ensuring obedience in this or her relationship with the Holy Spirit in order to maintain benefits. Obedience applies to instructions and advice from godly people. God’s grace prevails for people who relentless seek it to be revived even when they fall. The individual has a duty to maintain him-self or her-self in the Christian fold, to avoid bodily dangers associated with wickedness. They can continue thrive in good health when they return to the Christian fold. God’s numerous blessings and protection prevails so that he or she is happy in HIM (God).
Healing is sought by person and people concerned, of which faith is central; it is sustained by obedience of Christian teachings and respect for Christian norms, such as fellowships and being exemplary. The healing benefits cease to occur when the Holy Spirit is displaced by misdeeds and disrespect of godly teachings and Christian norms.
FAITH HEALING Services
Healing was real and complete if the individual does not have negative conflicts (adversity or EVIL) in the mind or defeating perceptions about life (or body). This paper attempted to examine the interplay between healing and the concept of evil. The findings from this project originated from the experiences of interactions with a cross-section of faithful (s) from Muslim, Christians, and Buddhist communities as well as from the review of secondary literature. The findings were as follows: positive actions and perceptions of life build positive spirit and vise-versa while negative actions detached individual from positive spirit (God) [good emotional feelings about oneself, life and others] for negative spirit (Satan) which reinforced negative thought, emotions and actions (anti-social behaviors and other associated psychological problems). Optimism is associated with variety of positive benefits that includes, lowering production of stress hormone –cartisol, bettering body function and reducing risk of chronic diseases.  Tuning the mind changed body’s biochemistry accordingly (the structure and function of cellular components such as proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids and other biomolecules). The negative oneself (feelings of anger, guilt, depression, fear) simply shrunk the life cells and compromised the immune system. Man’s failure to adopt and master nature dictated his downfall –helplessly. His decision to hand over management tools to the Divine was only a reflection of failure that came back to taunt him (or her). God had no role to play in man’s failures and self-extinction –if he/she (man) chose. When the relationship went bad, the spirits not appeased, when the certain details of the covenant in the relationship were broken, when individuals or sections of society abused the divine influence to attack and inflict pain on others, their normal life functioning got adversely affected. With broken spiritual life, individuals’ hearts and relationships were broken, unless interventions are made as soon as possible to reset the relationship to rightful order. Prior mindsets had stronger influences in new beliefs.  There is greater environment influence on life: both negatively and positive –depending on the nature and strength of it or such influences. It was thus vital to position oneself in an environment that would yield health influences and propulsion to positive outcomes.
HOW YOU CAN BE INVOLVED
As client
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Public Mental Health and Governance in Uganda

We yearn to survive, to feel secure, to find pleasure, and overcome pain from the day of coming into existence. There are specific needs to achieve those goals, such as food, water, medicine, social and professional support, renewable environment resources, and their continuous and anticipated access. Because they are survival, security, social, pleasure needs, we realize the right to access them and the responsibility and duty to work towards their realization. When these rights are not achieved at the moments they are most needed, the individual will be overwhelmed to levels when he or she cannot cope, which subsequently disrupts rational clues of achieving them or even any such hope, belief, and abilities to do so. Without interventions to address rising vulnerability of the individual, the cognitive, emotional, physical, social, spiritual and environmental connections are impaired yet are the ones responsible for his or her existence and achievement of the greatest of that person’s goals. There are specific references given to cases of mental illness that develop –one after the other –leading to total mental breakdown. Each of these cases ought to be addressed in singularity in new environments that accelerate healing, until the point the individual relearns the old environment and develops healthy coping mechanism to live and attain development goals there. This organization suggests th creation of a mental health infrastructure that creates contact with vulnerable groups and boosts their recovery while building their strength of coping and resilience to overcome their obstacles to expressing and obtaining their needs and rights. The infrastructure will be able to spot their unmet needs in some development time and process better the unhealthy mental attachments and images, provide natural means of negotiating access to natural needs and rights, enable such accesses to individuals who show natural effort and negotiation mechanism around challenges to expressing and realizing their needs and rights while using successful individuals to inspire others, until we achieve levels when the individuals can fix own challenges, express desires in most healthy way possible, seek assistance where they are trapped, and become responsible to themselves and society to achieve their aspirations. In doing so, the infrastructure will enable realization of people who are empowered and mentally well –sustainably.
HOW YOU CAN BE INVOLVED
As client
As volunteer
As service activity sponsor
As client sponsor
As fundraiser
As donor/funder
As ambassador
As development partner
As friend
Visit us
Visit our blog www.integratedmhi.blogspot.ug
Visit our facebook page: www.facebook.com/integratedmentalhealthinitiative
HOW YOU CAN REACH US
Telephone: +256774336277 or +256752542504
Email: waiswajacobo@yahoo.co.uk or dishma.imhs@gmail.com

HIV/AIDS: Positive Living and Resilience

HIV/AIDS Services
HIV BACKGROUND
Globally, an estimated 34 million people were living with HIV/AIDS in 2010.  14.2 million HIV positive people in need of drugs but 8 million of them cannot access it. Individuals were commonly infectedw ith HIV/AIDS in their most productive years (15-49). The scourge adverselly affects development.  The sub-Saharan African remained the greatest affected. An estimated 68% were living with HIV/AIDS in 2010.  For the last decade, committed political leadership, social change, innovation and rapid injection of new resources transformed the HIV success into a vanguard of global health success, and there came a new face of hope, resilience, courange, and responsibility.   Among the key findings from the progress report 2011 “Global HIV Response” were the need for updates on epidemc, interventions on preventions, scaling up treatment and care of people living with HIV/AIDS, scaling up services for key populations at a higher risk of HIV infection, scale up services for women and children, towards elimination of mother to child transmission, and improving maternal and child deaths in the contexts of HIV.   2011 indicated drastic improvement in the response to interventions by 21% since 1997, and deaths by 21% since 2005.  But, as of 2012; the situation in, particularly, Uganda has been very disappointing. HIV infections shot up again from 6.4% in 2005 to 7.3% in 2011, and females from 7.5% to 8.3%, and from 5% to 6.1%. HIV infection was higher in urban areas compared to rural.  The Uganda AIDS Commission reiterated the impact of leadership of the present government as very critical in the reduction of prevalence rates between 1992 (18%) and 2001 (6.2). The question remains, what went wrong? Was it leadership fatigue? Was it blurring of the message edge? Or is the population itself not taking responsibility?
Services:
HIV/AIDS is central element in reproductive health work in recent years. Reproductive health alone envisages a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing in all matters relating to health.  It deals with the reproductive process, functions and system at all stages of life.  And it implies that people are able to have satisfying and safe sex and that they have the capability to reproduce and freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so. Implicit in this condition are the right of men’s and women’s to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of their choices for regulation of fertility which are not against the law, and the right of access to appropriate health care services that will enable women’s to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth and provide couples with the best chance of having a healthy infant. Reproductive health also includes sexual health, the purpose of which enhancement of life and personal relations, are not merely counselling and care related to reproduction and sexually transmitted disease.

Finally, our experience increasingly shows that there is a link between reproductive health and security since contraction of any of the illness amounted to compromise personal safety which is aggravated violence on the basis of being vulnerable by gender, age. Ignorance of society and poor national leadership leads into production of children who become social costs and social misfit, whose goals get met through further violence with the society and who fall break the cycle of lack of information on reproductive health and increased vulnerability, with which to safeguard themselves from future reproductive health conditions, lack of personal, social, and national or regional peace. Peace can be attained only when there is access to information, knowledge of safety measure, access of facilities, knowledge of using facilities empowering to the society. In my work, guarantee communities with these assured the country of peace and security.

IMI IDENTIFIED PREDISPOSITIONS:
Vulnerability of children, Mental Health and HIV
Child abuse verses repression, projection verses limited protection and values, narsism and deviant, iressitibility, crash verses irressititability, denial, child hood,and living illusive life, avoidant, aggression, irritability, violence (including sex-related), displacement, projection, rationalisation, represion and defensiveness. IMI RECOMMENDED ACTIONS: forcefully take for treatment, experience truth, give hope , self imagery of life after, selfwareness and mastering life of personal wellbeing, mastering life with HIV, self discpline, development of hobbies, finding supportive groups/clubs, seeking support and selfhelp literature, finding and participation in productive work, self discipline, nursing and working on wishes and dreams -as well as walking them.

HIV WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF FAMILY MENTAL HEALTH
The project centers on family conflicts (or family mental health issues) which, if mismanaged, potentially, spills over into the wider community. It goes further to trace individual concerns (inner conflicts) that families consciously or unconsciously perpetuate –which, if not given due attention, like a time-bomb, blows up into serious social costs like substance abuse, aggressive and risky behaviors, increased HIV/AIDS prevalence, low productivity, poverty and looming ignorance to solve those problems. It is, thus, pertinent to address such problems from the environment around the root (individuals at family level) in order to achieve sustainable peace in the wider community (global peace).
HOW YOU CAN BE INVOLVED
As client
As volunteer
As service activity sponsor
As client sponsor
As fundraiser
As donor/funder
As ambassador
As development partner
As friend
Visit us
Visit our blog www.integratedmhi.blogspot.ug
Visit our facebook page: www.facebook.com/integratedmentalhealthinitiative
HOW YOU CAN REACH US
Telephone: +256774336277 or +256752542504
Email: waiswajacobo@yahoo.co.uk or dishma.imhs@gmail.com