Summit: Mental health – a new challenge for the European Union

A representative of our Belgian team, «ICO RUTENIA» – Ivanka TLUMATSKA – was invited to attend and participate in the Summit ‘Call for the adoption of an EU Action Plan on Mental Health for Young People’, which took place on 14 May at the European Parliament in Brussels.

The event was aimed at discussing the problem, which is essentially a humanitarian crisis, associated with the presence in EU countries of a significant number of refugees and displaced persons who have fled from areas of hostilities and armed conflict. The discussion did not focus specifically on Ukrainian refugees in the EU, as our people adapt quite easily to life in new conditions and do not experience the anxiety that experts observe among refugees from other civilisational and cultural backgrounds, such as Syria.

Over two days, more than 300 participants – experts, politicians, young people and artists – discussed and developed methods for future European Parliament decisions on mental health and the political, social and humanitarian aspects of addressing this issue at European Union level.

One of the leading speakers, MEP and former psychiatrist Ondráš Kula, noted the blatant neglect of mental health support for people with extreme war experiences in EU countries. The longer this problem is ignored at the level of both individual countries and pan-European institutions, the more effort will be needed to remedy the situation.

Ivanka Tlumatska presented to the summit guests an exclusive development by the RUTENIA team – an interactive mobile application called ‘Brotherhood of Cyborgs – Veteran Hub’, which, among other forms of assistance, offers free mental health consultations for people who have survived the bitter experience of war in Ukraine.

In addition to taking stock of the situation, the summit laid the foundations for an ambitious and cross-sectoral European strategy on mental health, including prevention, support, education and integration into all areas of public policy, from healthcare to social inclusion.