Life is not merely being alive, but being well. ~ Marcus Valerius Martialis, 40 AD – 103 AD
Mental health is everyone’s business –individuals, families, employers, educators, and all communities who all had to play their part. The idea of forming a multi-disciplinary, multi-ideological, and interacting in union, using vital mental exercises and communicative human behavior to create healthy rela
tionships that turn out to be sources of mental wellness, emerged in 2005, and was documented in 2006 as a think tank and registered in March 17th, 2015 as community-based organization –registration number JJA/2/2015/00123. Eight (8) years later, the Integrated Mental-Health Initiative (IMI) accelerated its work towards realization of its vision, mission, and goal to most concrete levels with “action now” drive amidst steadily rising cases of mental illness, breakdown of social fibre, ecological breakdown, and humanly induced elimination of life systems. It aimed at identifying and pooling together underutilized mental health professionals, allied practitioners, and stakeholders to foster the wellbeing of communities through mindful use of ecological resources of every nature. IMI followed system’s perspective, in which multiplicity of ideals interacts together without bias for the benefit of each other and everything (or everybody) connected to it. It linked human-problem areas, communities, and their leadership through information gathering, evaluation and re-evaluation, diagnoses, and therapy design and administration, using its established net-work of healthy corps, volunteers, interns and experiences from collaborating institutions. It has had partnership arrangements with Makerere University; Restless Development; Uganda Buddhist Center; John Paul II Justice and Peace Center; National Association of Professional Environmentalists, and individual consultants. IMI joined partner agencies and affected communities in realizing local benefits from their local environment that, in many ways, caused mental healing, beginning with its own staff who were primary agents of change.
