By Leonard Kamugisha Akida,
NATIONAL
LEM Mindfulness and the Rotaract Club of Kampala North signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) today (July19, 2022) to expand their partnership advocating for mental wellness in Uganda.
The signing ceremony was attended by officials from LEM Mindfulness, a mental health awareness organisation in Uganda and rotaractors from the Rotaract Club of Kampala North (KANOs), at Hotel Triangle in Kampala
The five year MoU will see both organisations partnering in various activities notably in promoting mental health awareness in institutions of learning across the country. During this period, LEM Mindfulness official LOGO and other organisation symbols will feature on KANOs promotional materials such as tear drops, flyers, banners as a corporate partner in their fellowships and other activities
Speaking shortly after the signing of an MOU, Pascal Ongom, the president of Rotaract Club of Kampala North said that the partnership will enable the rotaract to field in mental wellness which has been a great challenge to the organisation.
“This partnership is very important because it gives us an opportunity to extend mental wellness advocacy to the communities that we serve. With the subscription fee to this partnership, we will be able to execute a project of bigger magnitude,” said Ongom
He also praised LEM Mindfulness for choosing to partner with KANOs because it has been faced with the challenge of addressing mental health due to inadequate number of mental health specialists.
“It has been quite a challenge to tackle mental wellness because there are not so many specialists that handle this. LEM Mindfulness brings on board a very unique field and this gives us a very big opportunity to talk about mental wellness to the communities that we serve and other rotaracts.” Pascal explained
Martin Bakundana, the founder and Team Leader at LEM Mindfulness says that this Memorandum of Understanding reflects excellent mutual relations between LEM Mindfulness and the Rotaract Club of Kampala North.
“Our objective as LEM Mindfulness is to reach to a world where everyone who needs access to Mental Health information can receive the service. Rotary International and the Rotaract Club of Kampala North have same objective. This MOU will help both organisations to achieve our mutual objectives.” Bakundana said
LEM Mindfulness has been operational and for the past years it has been active in promoting mental health awareness and counselling services at Kyambogo University and neighbouring communities. Over 800 students at Kyambogo University have been offered mentorship on mental health by LEM Mindfulness. The organisation has also established a Mental Health Club within the university and by July 19, it had a total of 312 subscribed students.
He added that the programme will be rolled out to other institutions of learning like Kampala Internal University (KIU), and Uganda Christian University (UCU) among others. He further disclosed that they (LEM Mindfulness) are in close talks with Uganda Martyrs University – Kampala Campus to have the programme extended to this institution.
He says that there is an overwhelming number of people especially the youth seeking for mental health services across the country. Unfortunately, LEM Mindfulness cannot reach out to all of them given limited resources, thus appealing to other willing organisations to enter into partnership with LEM Mindfulness in promoting mental wellness.
“We are obviously reaching out to different other organisations to join us in this struggle as we aim at helping this world to deal with mental health challenges,” he urged.
