Over the last few months, the organisation City Sikhs has been working to train up people from the Sikh community to become qualified Mental Health First Aiders across the country. The course is being provided free-of-charge as part of the charity’s ongoing sewa (voluntary work) to the British Sikh community. So far, 37 people have been trained up in London and in Bradford by City Sikh volunteer and award-winning charity founder Neelam Heera.
The most recent training session took place at the Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Bradford, with 16 people from the local congregation becoming qualified Mental Health First Aiders and the first port of call for people with poor mental health. The training coincided with the 550th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak, and it was seen as a fitting way to honour the first Sikh Guru’s memory.
Although some course providers charge up to £250 per person for the two-day training course, City Sikhs is looking to absorb all of the costs itself in order to develop a much needed nationwide network of Sikh Mental Health First Aiders with ongoing support and help for them to create safe spaces in their local communities.
Chair of City Sikhs, Jasvir Singh, said “Poor mental health can affect anyone from any background at any time. The British Sikh Report 2018 found that 3 out of 4 British Sikhs know someone who has experienced poor mental health in the previous 12 months. We hope that this work will change how mental health is seen within the British Sikh community.”
Neelam Heera, the volunteer leading the mental health training, said “I’m very proud to be able to give back to the Sikh community, and I’m thankful to City Sikhs for providing the resources in training me up to become qualified. I founded the charity Cysters in order to tackle taboos surrounding reproductive wellbeing, including mental health, but the stigma attached to poor mental health remains an issue within the Sikh community. Hopefully the work being done to develop a nationwide network of Mental Health First Aiders will change that. We want to develop a long term framework, working with grassroots communities to create safe spaces to enable conversation around mental ill health.”
