A new initiative of Ezer Mizion's Mental Health Department is its Social Club for young women undergoing mental health rehabilitation. The club operates at Ezer Mizion's national headquarters Jacob Fried Building.
Shortly after the Mental Health Department opened its doors, it became clear that a pressing need existed for its activities, and for good reason. For these women, the only alternative to the Center is sitting alone, day after day, staring at the four walls...
Among the greatest problems facing the mentally ill in the community are loneliness and a crippling feeling of inability. While most of the women are employed in sheltered work environments in the morning, the afternoon and evening hours sprawl before them, utterly empty and desolate. In most cases, the mentally ill are cut off from normal social life, divested of the responsibilities and privileges of healthy people.
The Social Club offers a solution in these very crucial areas. The goals of the project are to develop each woman's personal potential, encourage interactive communication, and improve goal-setting and organizational abilities, enabling the participants to become functioning, positive individuals within a nurturing social environment.
The program at the Social Club is structured and activities are divided into three segments: independent activity, directed activity, and group activity. The structured activities give the women a surge of confidence in their own abilities, as they experience intense pleasure both in the process and in the final achievement. The refrain that the Club attempts to nurture in the women's consciousness is: "I can do it! I can contribute of my own abilities to those around me!"
The group activities afford the women an opportunity to formulate the social ties that are so lacking to them, and invest them with a growing sense of personal value. In the future, the Social Club will expand its activities to include parties, trips and lectures.
For many of these women, if it were not for the sheltered job, social club, and the interaction with a warm, accepting, normative environment that they find at Ezer Mizion they would have no reason to get out of bed in the morning.
The Center gives them more than occupation. It elevates their self-esteem, empowers them and offers them a social safety net. Above all, it gives them the drive to hope and dream. As one woman wrote when asked how she sees herself and what she wishes for her future: "I'm happy. I'm healthy. But I'm not like everyone. Some day, I'll get married and have a life of my own."
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