MOLDOVA-MENTAL HEALTH INFO

ROLE OF MASS MEDIA IN PREVENTING DISCRIMINATION IN MOLDOVA

Mr. Vitalie Cazacy presentation at the III SEE MH Policy Forum in Sofia - Bulgaria 2006

It is worth mentioning that the Moldavian mass media doesn’t fight stigmatisation or discrimination of people with mental health care. On the contrary, it keeps on encouraging the discriminating attitude of the society towards this social category making use of some specific press means. Moldavian mass media always looked forward to have striking news. That is why its news products are full of “epithets” that hurt the dignity and the honour of people with mental health problems. They also consolidate the scornful and discriminating attitude of the society towards these persons. Thus, the intolerance, journalistic clichés, stigmatisation and discrimination of mentally-ill people is still considered to be a reality in Republic of Moldova. Despite the progress emerged in this field, the state institutions, the press service and the society display intolerance towards the beneficiaries of mental health care services. Thus, it may be truly stated that this problem has already become a norm in Republic of Moldova.

All the conclusions stated above come from DECA-press Agency working experience. The agency implemented several projects of its own, as well as in common with the Association “SOMATO“. The latter ones dealt with the familiarisation of the community from the town of Balti with the problems mentally-ill people face today. At the same time, it focused on the efforts of social integration of these people.
Despite that, the situation regarding the description of mental health problems field in mass media starts to change slowly for better. This is due to the informing campaigns, initiated by different non-governmental organisations, as to partnerships with mass media initiated by the associative sector from the mental health care area.

DECA-press Agency, I’m the leader of, has got a 6-year-experience regarding the informational support provided for the organisation of different activities in the domain of mental health care. This is thanks to the partnership with the Civil Organisation „Somato” from Balti, an institution we co-operated with during at least four informing campaigns dealing with the mental health care field. As a result of these media campaigns, in which all the local press was involved, Balti has become a sample as far as the co-operation among different sectors for the sake of familiarising the population with the mental health care problems is concerned. Moreover, the town of Balti has made progress in fighting discrimination and stigmatisation in the same area.

Despite that, in 2005, DECA-press implemented its own informing program called “Mental Health: Social Integration Problem”, funded by the Government of Great Britain. Thus, in the framework of this program, 3 articles, 20 pieces of news, 10 pictures, based on mental health problems, including successful life stories on the social integration of these persons in Balti and Criuleni have been published or diffused during the activity of DECA-press Agency. Our partners in this project were the centres of mental health care „Speranta” from Criuleni and „Somato” from Balti.

„Together for a better life” is the name of another program in the mental health field, which we finished in March. It is worth saying that this program was supported by the Global Initiative in Psychiatry. During the implementation of this program, we have organised 7 trainings and workshops on topics connected with the field of social communication and media techniques. The program brought together 15 beneficiaries of mental health services, their relatives and representatives of social non-governmental organisations.

In March, the participants to the trainings in common with mass media representatives elaborated a media strategy meant to improve people’s attitude towards mentally-ill persons. All these activities aimed at contributing to the training of the target group of the project in the domain of social communication and Press Relations in order to encourage media policies, excluding the stigmatisation of people with mental health problems from press field and society of Republic of Moldova.

I may say that as a result of the activities included in the project, a real partnership between DECA-press Agency, on the one hand, and beneficiaries of mental health services, their relatives and representatives of social non-governmental organisations, on the other hand, was established. By means of this partnership, we intend to apply the above stated media strategy into practice.

The partnership activities have already contributed to the development of the human abilities and communication skills of persons with mental health problems. This media strategy will join all the forces from the society interested in preventing mental health problems, establishing new partnerships among sectors, destroying stigma and discrimination of mentally-ill people, diffusion of correct and objective information on mental health care.

At the same time, the media strategy will encourage journalists who deal with mental health topics to follow the ethic principles in the depicting this problem.
The learned skills got in the framework of the project will help people with mental health problems to present themselves in the society and mass media, consolidate their communication skills.

It is well-known that mass media has got a key-role in modelling the community’s attitude covering all the areas, including the mental health domains as well. We consider that mass media in Republic of Moldova is going to play a great role in fighting stigma and familiarising the population with mental health problems. In fact, this idea is included in the Working Plan of Europe “Discover Difficulties, Find Solutions”, adopted in Helsinki in January 2005 during the Inter-ministries Conferences of the member states of World Health Care Organisation.

The qualitative information is one of the basic principles of mass media. Journalists and the population are interested in having operative and interesting information. The press interest towards mental health problems must change from press scandals to positive news.

The qualitative public policies, spread over mainly by means of mass media are necessary to decrease the level of discrimination of beneficiaries of mental health services as well as to make a career in the domain of mental health care much more attractive. Thus, people dealing with mental health domain will have a higher social status, especially in the domain of medical fields.

Like medicine, journalism is a profession. Our experience proves that mass media communication may become more efficient due to the contribution of beneficiaries as well as due to their families.

Yet, the most important thing is to have the desire to change things for better.