Mental health fundraiser sets a new goal to help woman in Uganda and Zambia

SAINT ANDREWS – Mental health fundraiser Matthew Dickson of Saint Andrews is continuing his work to improve treatment in developing countries. In August 2021, The Saint Croix Courier first reported on Dickson’s awareness-raising actions. Through his website www.MindAid.ca, Facebook and other social media pages, Dickson encourages people to support the seven non-profit organizations that he has discovered through his research. Each organization, Dickson feels, has worthwhile programs in developing countries to help people with mental illness, a grossly underserved population. For 2022 Dickson has a new focus.

Dickson has launched a challenge to raise $1.8 million to assist an organization called StrongMinds. A social enterprise founded in 2013, StrongMinds treats depression in women and adolescents in Uganda and Zambia. Dickson hopes that if throughout the next year the cause receives $3 a month from 50,000 people, the treatment cost of $180 per person will be met for 10,000 women.

StrongMinds is the non-profit organization that particularly impressed Dickson when he started looking into the mental-health help available in developing. He notes the group’s ability to make an impact and its “Guidestar Platinum Seal of Transparency rating.” Importantly, Dickson was particularly taken with the fact that StrongMinds uses talk therapy, rather than medication, to improve the lives of women and adolescents.

The StrongMinds website cites that the organization has helped 100,000 women since 2014. Through group-talk therapy, “peer-to-peer therapy, teletherapy, public education, and partnerships” the group affects change in women and adolescents. As women’s depression lessens, the positive benefits are felt by their families and communities. StrongMinds claims that 86 per cent of their clients remain depression-free six months after treatment.

With a specific financial goal, Dickson hopes the cause will have some “traction.” Dickson’s desire to help is deep, as he himself has walked a long journey over several decades from extreme mental illness to achieving the feeling of good health. Now, he wishes to do something tangible for those on the same path, but who may live in more appalling conditions and with less access to services than people in Canada. “Everyone needs a voice. People are suffering when they don’t have to be. There is a low-cost solution,” Dickson explains.

To raise the funds, Dickson plans to “tell the story over and over again”. He does not collect money directly as he himself is not a non-profit organization, However, he pushes himself to have the “strength and courage” needed to keep to steering people towards his worthy fundraising platforms, and, in particular, StrongMinds. “People can start their own fundraisers: schools, students and classes. I hope,” Dickson concludes, “to keep people talking.”

liangoodall@advocateprinting.com

lian goodall