Table Tennis for Mental Health

Integrated Community Development Initiative

The wars and long-term conflicts that the refugee adolescents and youth in Nakivale refugee settlement and surrounding rural host communities have gone through in their countries, have and are still causing them to get in distress and post-traumatic stress disorders. Hence, they are developing mental health illnesses.

Project support start: 01-04-2022

Project location: Nakivale Refugee Settlement and surrounding rural host communities, Uganda

The two-year project aims to use table tennis as a tool to improve mental health among 600 adolescents and youth in Nakivale Refugee Settlement and surrounding rural host communities in Isingiro District-Southwestern Uganda.

The project uses the buffering hypothesis that table tennis brings to conduct Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), raise awareness, and reduce stigma related to adolescents and youth mental illnesses. The project also supports early detection of mental health issues as well as enhancing referral services for those with mental illnesses to access treatment.

Contribution to the Global Goals

Target 3.4: By 2030, reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being.