The Mir Khalil-ur-Rehman Foundation (MKRF), in partnership with British Asian Trust, launched the nationwide campaign “Milkar” to address mental health issues in Pakistan.
People from different walks of life attended the campaign’s opening ceremony, including MD Jang Group Shahrukh Hassan.
The MD Jang Group expressed happiness over the launch saying the MKRF was launched by Jang Group founder Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman.
According to the campaign website, the “MILKAR campaign is intended to create awareness, remove stigma, raise red flags, profile success stories and facilitate the provision of help”.
“Aman Ki Asha and Zara Sochiye campaigns were run which had a positive impact on the society,” Hassan further stated.
He further stated that MILKAR will be a long awareness campaign and “in the first phase we will compile data” for it.
He presented daunting data that in Pakistan, there is just one psychologist for every 50,000 people and there are a lot of people in the country suffering from mental health issues.
According to data provided by the MKRF website, one out of three Pakistani adults suffer from anxiety and depression.
As per the British Asian Trust, Pakistan has just an estimated 500 psychologists and 400 psychiatrists with only a handful of child psychiatrists.
Their data further shows that due to stigma and lack of awareness, people do not seek help and 90% of those in need of mental health treatments cannot access support.
