Young psychologists address youth’s concerns |13 August 2021

Mrs Dodin interacting with the psychologists (Photo: Louis Toussaint)

Young people from across the country had the opportunity yesterday to seek help from psychologists regarding matters affecting them.

The aspiration programme, dubbed ‘Youth Matters’, was organised by the Seychelles National Youth Council (SNYC) as part of activities for the Youth Festival. The aim of the programme was to listen and give the right information to the youth with regard to their queries.

Eleven young psychologists and provisional psychologists were at the SNYC head office, Sacos Tower, to assist the 35 young people who made the calls for assistance in relation to grief, insecurity, vulnerability and health among other matters. The five telephone numbers they had to call were 2889391, 2889388, 2889462, 2889468 and 2889386. The numbers were shared at intervals between the eleven young psychologists. The event, which started at 8am, ended at 4pm.

Beryl Dodin, the coordinator of the programme and the counselor at SNYC, said the event went well but they were expecting more youths to participate as there are many young people with problems out there.

She noted that the programme was a first and that SNYC will repeat it in future, most probably on a Saturday when the youngsters are not in school.

“Apart from assisting the youth in solving their problems, the idea also was to bring together the young psychologists and provisional psychologists so that they get to interact and know each other. We also got them to form a group that will give SNYC a helping hand in assisting youths with problems in the communities,” Mrs Dodin said.

Aubrey Pharla, developmental psychologist at Mental Health Services, Ministry of Health, said the exercise was interesting and he will be waiting to participate in the next session.

He further said that had the session been held on a day other than on a school day and with a better marketing strategy, more young people would have participated and the impact would have been greater.

Patrick Joubert