A couple of weeks ago, the De-mentes team successfully completed our first project in partnership with the Ministry of Health: the implementation of the “The Art Within Me” workshops at the “Villa El Salvador” Community Mental Health Center.

Artists, volunteers, and the De-mentes and “Villa El Salvador” Community Mental Health Center teams during the closing ceremony of the workshops.

This initiative was created by our organization to create spaces where art becomes a mechanism for empowering users, contributing to their rehabilitation process and social reintegration. This edition of the project, developed between May and August 2019, connected our work with that of the Mental Health Directorate of the Ministry of Health, working toward this great shared goal.

The “Villa El Salvador” Community Mental Health Center was the setting for this pilot project. Here, we were able to meet and spend almost four months with wonderful people and incredibly talented artists. A part of our hearts remains with each one of them, as every Saturday they allowed us to renew our commitment to reducing the stigma surrounding mental health in our country.

«The Art Within Me» aims to create a space for artistic expression while promoting the empowerment of participating artists, highlighting their talent, and encouraging their social inclusion. It is a project aligned with the National Plan for Strengthening Community Mental Health Services 2018–2021, and we hope to continue implementing it in more community mental health centers in the coming months.

Part of our proposal is to encourage encounters and dialogue between different people in order to promote a society free of stigma, as well as to transform art into a tool that allows people to discover and recognize themselves.

In this pilot project, artists were trained in woodcut techniques and the subsequent binding of notebooks. During the closing fair held a few days ago, they had the opportunity to exhibit notebooks featuring their own artwork. These notebooks are now available for purchase through our social media platforms.

Thank you to Rita, Eduard, Jhonathan, Kevin, Sonia, Alejandro, Willy, David, Henry, Paola, Rosemary, Juan, Nilton, Grecia, Herbert, Mileym, Miguel, and Christian, the talented artists we had the privilege of working with. Thank you to the Ministry of Health for your trust. You allowed us to achieve one of our greatest dreams: working together with the government to continue promoting the destigmatization of mental health and the social inclusion of people with mental health experiences.

Do not forget that you can purchase the notebooks through our social media platforms.

#EveryoneForMentalHealth