Addressing mental health should start with equality
Action for Global Health recently had the pleasure of working with Matrika Devkota, an Executive Director of KOSHISH, a charity based in Nepal that promotes the rights of people with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities.
Matrika is also a person with lived experience of mental health conditions, a suicide survivor and someone who has personally borne the impacts of stigma, prejudice, misconceptions and discrimination.
They has faced many barriers, personally, since the age of 15, when they developed psychosocial issues, and then again professionally while working for the rights and dignity of other people with psychosocial disabilities and mental health conditions in Nepal.
In this guest post written exclusively for Bond, a member of the Action for Global Health Network, Matrika discusses their lived experience, the issue with marginalisation, the impacts of funding cuts and the need for equity in global health.