The need for an institution to deal with trauma victims saw the establishment of the Association for Health and Counselling (AHC) popularly known as Shanthiham or Shanthiaham in 1988. Since then Shanthiham has developed as an organization that provides both a Counselling Centre and Training Centre in Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) for the Northern region. Organizationโs projects:
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hanthiham is dedicated to improving the community well-being of individuals, families and communities in the northern region, especially it recently ran three programs to support the victims of conflict. Trauma Program especially for the victims of conflict with the support of The Asia Foundation. The next program with the support of USAID to enhance resilience and recovery via integrated mental health and psychosocial services and Accompaniers Program - working with the families with disappeared members with the support of ICRC. Shanthiham works at providing psychosocial services to trauma and severe trauma affected groups through community based psychosocial interventions and capacity building training front-line social workers. Shanthiham also provides training in mental health to government, non-government organizations, community organizations and community workers. At present it is involved in preparing the Standard Operating Procedures in Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) Case Management with the stakeholders with the support of Swiss Embassy (through SDC). Another program that works with the Single Headed Household to empower the families to deal with the power imbalance and work with the partner organizations ZOA, FOSDO and Viluthu to encourage women political leadership, sustainable economic development and reducing Gender Based Violence. Community empowerment:
The uniqueness of Shanthiham's intervention is to create Core Groups - a self-empowered community volunteers group which helps to handle the Mental Health and Psychosocial issues in their communities, dealing with the issues with positive manner, collaborate with community groups, refer the needy people to service providers; for example, mental health services from Government hospitals and SGBV and Children issues to local divisional and district officials, and to organizations who provide counselling and livelihood support.
