What is Shanthiham:
Shanthiham is a non-profit, local Non-Governmental Organization, collaborate with the communities to improve their well-being, working at Northern and Eastern regions of Sri Lanka since 1988.
The history:
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 in 1988. Since then Shanthiham has developed as an organization that provides both a Counselling Centre and Training Centre for Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) for the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka.
Organizationโs primary interventions:
Shanthiham is dedicated to improving the community well-being of individuals, families and communities. It includes the capacity building programs for front-line social workers from Government and private sectors. The details of intervention methodologies documented in the book โScarred Communitiesโ.
The capacity building helps to integrate the services to deliver enhanced psychosocial interventions with the collaboration of District and Divisional service providers.
Recently implemented programs:
1. Working with conflict-affected communities, focused to Enhance Resilience and Recovery via integrated mental health and psychosocial services in selected communities with the support of USAID.
2. Developing Standard Operating Procedures, focused to develop the best practices for SGBV case management through working with communities and front line officials with the support of Swiss Embassy through SDC.
3. IMHO Counselling Course focused to select counselling trainees from five districts of Northern Province and train them as counsellors with classroom learning and field practices with the support of International Medical Health Organization (IMHO).
4. Trauma Program focused to provide community counselling services integrated with referral systems for the direct victims of conflict with the support of The Asia Foundation.
5. EU EIDHR Program focused for the promotion of the rights of conflict-affected women through a redress of power imbalances in conflict-affected communities with the partnership of ZOA, FOSDOO and Viluthu through the support of ZOA Sri Lanka.
6. EU Catalytic Support to Peace Building Program focused to provide services for children, parents and their communities to improve the well-being of the children through community interventions at selected resettled communities with the collaboration of SOND, OfERR Ceylon with the support of Unicef.
7. Accompaniment Program focused to improve the psychosocial well-being of the families with missing members with the support of ICRC.
Ongoing Programs:
1. Psychosocial Training of Trainers (TOT) Program focused on capacity building of front line workers from Government and private sectors with the support of Government Office for National Unity and Reintegration (ONUR).
2. Social Cohesion and Reconciliation (SCORE) focused to train psychosocialBefrienders and develop Core Groups in the conflict affected communities and at Jaffna district with the support of Global Communities, funded by USAID.
3. Diploma in Psychological Counselling 2019/2020 focused to train Counsellors initiated by Shanthiham.
Counselling Centre:
Individual and family counselling services provided in the Centre, located in the Head Office (Address: Shanthiham, 8, Katpaha Vinayagar Lane, Off Kachcheri Nallur Road, Jaffna).
Telephone:+94-021-222-3338
Get Counselling Appointment: https://fb.com/book/shanthiham
Training & Publication:
Shanthiham also provides training in mental health to the government, non-government organizations, community organizations and community workers and publishes manuals and handbooks, recently published Mental Health in Tamil Community-revised third edition, Child Mental Health-revised second edition, Child Protection-first edition, Pulari - revised third edition, Standard Operating Procedures for SGBV Case Management-English & Tamil edition. At present, working on developing Tamil adopted version of WHO manual on Problem Management Plus (PM+) and Unicef manual on Improving Child Well-Being.
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 service units, and to organizations who provide needed services.
Contact Us:
Shanthiham
The Association for Health and Counselling (AHC)
8, Katpaha Vinayagar Lane,
Off Kachcheri Nallur Road,
Jaffna 40000,
Sri Lanka.
Facebook & Twitter: @shanthiham
Telephone:+94-021-222-3338
Website: shanthiham.org
Email: director@shanthiham.org & director.shanthiham@gmail.com
