Paper details
| Paper authors | AMIERA SHAKINA BINTI MOHAMAD NADZIR |
| In panel on | MHPSS in Crisis Zones: Psychosocial Liberation through Local Knowledge and Decolonised Practice |
| Paper presenter(s) will be presenting |
In-Person / |
Abstract
This photo documentary captures my journey in Kenya, where I volunteered as a mental health professional with Roy Ndung’u Foundation, dedicated to breaking the stigma surrounding physical disabilities and mental health. Living together with the beneficiary family itself, I have witnessed the quiet resilience and struggles of navigating poverty, unemployment, water scarcity, and systemic barriers within their constant political instability.
Amidst socioeconomic hardship and the residues of colonial value systems, where success often equated with material wealth — I’d witnessed how faith, festivals, and communal support preserve psychosocial resilience. One of the pilot efforts is organising a men’s mental health workshop, creating a safe space for emotional expression through the art therapy model, healing dialogue, and reconnection with collective identity. It became an act of solidarity with the community, dismantling stigma from within by prioritising local leadership, support for caregivers and cultivating culturally resonant healing ecosystems — essential to any ethical, decolonised humanitarian response.
These images are not simply about illness or poverty — they echo resilience, connection, and the complex beauty of a community holding on to tradition and dignity. This project offers a raw, narrative-driven lens into life, healing, and survival in Kenya that goes beyond social constructs of geopolitical and economic struggle.
