Nuha Abdul Razaq, an Iraqi former refugee, makes her home in Australia. She teaches suicide prevention workshops tailored to the needs of Arabic-speaking refugees and asylum seekers. Since settling in Australia in 2005, Ms Abdul Razaq has worked on mental health issues affecting these communities. Whether providing financial or emotional support, she meets people where they are as they work through the difficult process of resettlement. Wesley LifeForce has since rolled out a wider campaign to deliver this life saving training in suicide prevention. The workshops will be carried out in six different languages of Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Karen, Khmer, and Tamil.
Refugees and asylum seekers in Australia suffer from mental health conditions at significantly higher rates than the general population. Reports indicate that over 50% of this population experiences poor mental health, with more than 25% suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It’s pretty bleak out there. Suicidal ideation impacts as many as 10% of men and 17% of women in these communities. Ms. Abdul Razaq’s workshops are one step towards changing these disturbing statistics by encouraging communities to have honest conversations about mental health and suicide.
In the beginning, I was overwhelmed and nervous at my first training, learning everything for the first time. I quickly woke up to the fact that if it’s happening in the community, everybody should know about it. Ms. Abdul Razaq spoke to her own difficulty in engaging on these complex issues.
Moreover, the stigma around suicide acts as a major barrier within the Arabic-speaking community. Ms. Abdul Razaq explained that it is hard for people to even address suicide in general because of the culture surrounding it. It’s such an issue that they don’t discuss it at all in our country. While I was stationed in Iraq, I ended up working and meeting people from all over the region—Syria, Lebanon, Jordan. We don’t talk about taking our lives like this in our communities. It’s as if people think that it’s disgraceful,” she said.
Wesley LifeForce has met this urgent need by providing culturally appropriate, holistic care. Bethany Farley, the National Training Manager at Wesley LifeForce, emphasized the impact of language barriers and cultural differences in accessing mental health services. Then you add in the other challenges of a language barrier, not knowing how these processes even work. She highlighted the need to seek out services that staff translators. These professionals need to understand the complexities of their community and culture, but more importantly how they react to different situations.
The workshops, which are part of the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, are designed for suicide prevention. Through their work, they formulate an enclosed environment for participants to express their stories. During one recent fertility education session led by Ms. Abdul Razaq, nine women participated, all leaving saying it was helpful. “It was very good and I liked the way they talked about it. They open their mouths and talk about their stories as well. It builds a comfortable space between us and builds trust,” one attendee noted.
Ms. Abdul Razaq’s journey makes her a uniquely effective trainer. Having lived through the stresses associated with displacement and resettlement herself, she brings empathy and an impressive interpersonal set of skills to her sessions. To immigrate to another country, it’s not that simple. Some of them are for 10 years, 12 years, people living in these camps. Transitioning to a new country with multiple languages and monetary issues is tremendously daunting,” she said.
The passionate call for help rings through loud and clear. Asylum seekers often suffer for years in limbo waiting for an adjudication on their status, further exacerbating the plight. This unknown only adds to the trauma experienced from exposure to violence and war in their home countries. “Asylum seekers are in a situation where they’re living in protracted uncertainty. There’s no clarity for them about whether they will remain safe or could be returned to circumstances of danger,” noted an expert on the challenges faced by this population.
