PCBU hosts Mental Health Resilience Building Program

From February 17th to February 19th, 2024, Peace Café Brac University (PCBU) in collaboration with Moner Bondhu, hosted a three-day session titled “Building Mental Health Resilience against Cyberbullying & Online Harms” at the BracU new campus. The sessions consisted of a total of six sessions, with two slots of sessions being hosted each day. The goal of the session was to equip the participants with the necessary abilities to survive and tackle the threats posed by cyberbullying as well as other cybercrimes.  The sessions were attended by around 300 students. 

The first session of the first day was inaugurated and conducted by Ms. Tawhida Shiropa, Founder & CEO, Moner Bondhu; Mr. Md Abu Sayed, Project director, PTIB project and director, Bangladesh Computer Council, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division; Ms. Sheela Tasnim-Haq, Senior Governance Specialist, UNDP; the respected registrar of Brac university and Mr. Md Shamsul Arefin, secretary, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division, Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications & Information Technology. 

Along with other guests the second session of the first day was facilitated by Dr. Helal Uddin Ahmed, Associate Professor of Adolescent and Family Psychiatry, at the National Institute of Mental Health was the facilitator and Munia Haque Opsory, general secretary of Peace Café, The first session of the second day was facilitated by A B M Jabed Sultan, Chief Digital Business Officer, Prothom Alo and co-facilitated by Maliha Maimuna, the vice president of PCBU. 

For the second session of the second day, Kazi Rumana Haque, the leading figure in mental health at Moner Bondhu, was the facilitator, and Nuzhat Tabassum Safa, PCBU was the co-facilitator. 

The first session of the third and final day was graced with the presence of Nadim Farhad, Peace and Development Officer, UN Resident Coordinator’s Office (RCO); Hasina Momotaz, National professional officer (Mental Health), World Health Organisation, Country Office for Bangladesh; Md. Abdul Lotib Somrat, Moner Bondhu; Dr. Helal Uddin Ahmed, Associate Professor, Adolescent and Family Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health; and lastly, Tawhida Shiropa, founder and CEO of Moner Bondhu. 

The sessions took place each day from 9 am to 12.30 pm and again from 2 to 5 pm. The sessions featured mental health and stress relief exercises, meditation sessions, as well as resource-equipment of participants with several government and non-government anti-cybercrime hotlines. Discussants provided hands-on training to participants for responding and navigating any instance of cyberbullying or any other similar form of cybercrime, and instructed the participants of the methods with which they can be successfully resilient to cybercrimes and online harms. Finally, everyone further expressed that in order to train smart citizens of a smart society and thus construct a smart Bangladesh, similar mental health resilience building sessions should be hosted in all educational institutions of all levels.

These sessions were extremely crucial for the maintenance of the sound health of students and for keeping them well-informed and well-prepared to tackle any instance of cybercrime head-on using the resources provided in the sessions, as well as keeping themselves calm, composed, and healthy to deal with the social and psychological repercussions of the attacks healthily.