Tuesday 10th October is World Mental Health Day and the focus in 2023 is on mental health as a universal human right.
Mental health is a basic human right for all people. Everyone, whoever they are and wherever they are, is entitled to the highest attainable standard of mental health. This includes the right to be protected from mental health risks. It includes the right to available, accessible, acceptable and good-quality care. And it includes the right to liberty, independence and community inclusion.
On the other hand, barriers to positive mental health exist everywhere: at home, at school and at work. Mental ill health should never serve as a reason to deprive someone of their human rights or exclude them from decisions about their own wellbeing. Yet, all over the world, people continue to experience a wide range of human rights violations. Many are excluded from community life, suffering discrimination. Others are forced to access inadequate care, if they can access it at all.
That’s why it’s important to look after ourselves and each other. World Mental Health Day is a perfect vehicle for taking action around mental health and strengthening human rights. It offers us the chance to build mental and emotional resilience, to improve access to support services when needed or required.
It also affords us the opportunity to start a conversation about what human rights mean to the public. In fact, we recently spoke to the people who use our services about the topic of human rights. “What does that phrase mean to you, in your life?” we asked. They talked about how human rights and community intersect, from “the right to be part of something” and “equal rights for everyone” to “the right to acknowledge and be acknowledged by other people”. Other, more personal, testimonies referenced “the right to live”, “the right to love and be loved”, “the right to work” and “the right to opportunities.”
As part of our World Mental Health Day campaign, we’ve put together a video in which individuals from across Team Inspire – service users and the colleagues supporting them – telling us what human rights mean to them. Check it out below.
If you want to get involved in our campaign, why not film upload your own snappy video to social media, outlining your thoughts on the subject of human rights? Be sure to use #WMHD2023 and tag @InspireWBGroup on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook, and @inspire_wellbeing on Instagram.
Human rights are the basis of everything we do at Inspire. Our voice, values, culture and strategy our are upheld by the highest standards of freedom, respect, equality, dignity and autonomy. As we mark World Mental Health Day 2023, we stand in solidarity with people living with mental ill health, here and in communities around the globe.
It’s important to remember, however, that positive mental health starts before 10th October and extends well beyond it. For a range of materials designed to help everyone stay well, check out our Community Wellbeing hub.