A group known as Calabar Mums have called on all women to protect their mental health as they engage in their day-to-day activities.
This was emphasised by the Founder of the group, Mrs Victoria Ekpo on Thursday during their annual Big Meet in Calabar.
Ekpo said women did a lot every day as a routine in ensuring that the children, family and home, in general, were in order in addition to working or engaging in a business.
According to the founder of the group, this can be mentally taxing for women and affect their mental health.
She said the annual Big Meet event was a gathering to get the women relaxed, unwind, learn and go home with impactful lessons that would make them healthier, stronger and their families better organised.
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“Today the women are out here to relax, away from their daily routine of taking care of everyone in the home and even working to boost the income in their homes.
“We also use this opportunity to carry out social responsibilities like we did last year December when we packaged food items like rice garri, yam and condiments for over 200 women in Calabar Municipality and Calabar South who were engaged by the state government to sweep the roads.
“This year, we are making it bigger to reach more women and support them; these women do so much to ensure our roads are clean but are not well paid, so we want to support them,” she said.
Similarly, Mrs Enobong UnoAsuquo, a legal practitioner and member of Calabar Mums said they support women because a mentally healthy and strong woman produces a stable family.
UnoAsuquo said that when the family is stable, stronger homes are built which transcends to the communities and nation at large.
“When women get support, families, marriages, homes and communities get support, so, as a group, we teach women to be intentional about their mental health which helps them to be stable, especially in decision-making,” she said.
On her part, Mrs Irene Bangwell, co-founder of the Knosk N100-a-day School said while it was important for women to take care of their mental health, it was also important for women to start providing their children with sex education.
She said mums spend more time with the children, they should equip them with the skills to protect themselves from sexual exploitation.
Bangwell also used the opportunity to call on more experts to take up the mentoring of the boy child, if gender and sexual violence must reduce in society.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event which featured lectures, debates and panel discussions to encourage women entrepreneurs also featured games to help women relax.
