Wau – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has handed over a Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) centre to the State Ministry of Gender Child and Social Welfare in Wau.

The centre was constructed in 2017 under the Capacity Building Package project funded by the United Kingdom’s Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) and IOM has been supporting MHPSS activities at the centre including an on-job training of 33 Social workers. These social workers have acquired skills in case management, advocacy, psychosocial First Aid, counselling and facilitating group sessions. 

“This centre was constructed to provide basic MHPSS services to conflict affected populations and host communities. IOM is confident that the social workers trained will continue with the great work that the MHPSS team has been doing at the centre, especially handling mental health and psychosocial problems affecting vulnerable populations” said  Ronald Gara , IOM South Sudan’s Officer in Charge for Wau Sub-office.

To ensure sustainability of the Capacity building Package project, IOM and the State Ministry of Gender Child and Social Welfare designed an on-job training approach to enable local communities acquire the necessary skills to continue providing affected populations as easy access to basic mental health support services. This collaboration between IOM and the Ministry through its Directorate of Gender and Social Development has revived and empower local social services and re-build a network of operational and qualified social workers that can timely and effectively respond to the demands of people in need across collective sites, areas of returns and host communities.

“The ministry is proud to receive trained social workers and MHPSS Centre. There are so many people who need support emotionally in the community, these trained social workers will continue to offer this support to the populations in need using the knowledge and skills they have learnt” said Honorable Christina Gabriel Ali, State Minister of Gender Child and Social welfare.

The handover event was witnessed by Hon Minister of Gender Child & Social Welfare and Director General of Gender, Child and Social Welfare, Social Workers & community leaders .

For more information, please contact Nabie Loyce in South Sudan; Tel: 0921708535, Email: nloyce@iom.int