In July 2018 I will be travelling around Bali volunteering in deprived psychiatric hospitals, orphanages and schools for children with mental disabilities.

Mental health awareness is very minimal globally but especially in Bali where resources are so limited due to the deprived nature of the country.
In Bali, mentally ill people are restrained by chains and often locked in a room away from the world and any form of interaction. The practice of restraining the mentally ill is called pasung. It is widespread among poor Indonesian families who resort to iron shackles, wooden stocks, ropes, cages and locked rooms. The main reason for it is because they can’t afford to help them medically and they are clueless to what is actually wrong with them. This needs to stop. A case study which you can read about online talks about a girl who has been chained and caged for over 20 years forced to live with faeces smothered all over the walls.
There has been some progress in Indonesia: since an anti-pasung program was launched in 2011, more than 5000 restrained people have been freed. The ministry of health is optimistic that a pasung-free program for 2015-19 will end shackling. However, there remains many obstacles to wiping out the practice, not least the severe shortage of mental health facilities. Mental health was allocated only about two per cent of the national budget last year, in a country where seven of the 34 provinces are without a dedicated hospital or programs and only 700 psychiatrists serve the sprawling archipelago of 240 million people. In Bali there is only one state psychiatric institution, the Bangli Mental Hospital. By doing this placement, I aim to help stop pasung (caging the mentally ill) and raise awareness for mental health in Bali. In Bali, mental health will be a huge focus and I can’t wait to help!