S5 E9: Insights from Children on Mental Health in Schools

In conversation with Tshiamo Mpangeni,  Panji Chirambo,  Al-Amin Abdallah  and Jolene Kibor.

On 2 August 2023, the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, hosted a child-led conference on children’s mental health in Schools in Africa. The conference was attended by children from Cameroon, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Malawi and Zimbabwe.

During this conference, Africa Rights Talk had a conversation with the participants children from Malawi and Kenya, namely, Tshiamo Mpangeni,  Panji Chirambo,  Al-Amin Abdallah and Jolene Kibor. They shared their understanding of mental health issues, the importance of child participation in mental health discussions, understanding the challenges that plague children concerning mental health, and what their individual countries can do to better approach mental health challenges amongst children and young adults in schools.

The Children’s Rights Unit  at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria was established in 2013 to advocate for matters the protection of children's rights. The Unit works through research, advocacy, and training, to contribute to the regional discourse on the rights of children in Africa and beyond. In line with the Centre’s mission, the work of the Unit has a pan-African reach, while seeking to foster a contextually relevant understanding of global issues and concerns to children in Africa. The Unit provides an essential bridge between academic research and evidence-based advocacy in the African region.

This conversation was recorded on 3 August 2023.

Music and news extracts: Inner Peace by Mike Chino https://soundcloud.com/mike-chinoCreative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/0nI6qJeqFcc  limitless https://stock.adobe.com/za/search/audio?k=452592386