Youth collectives in Mexico have created information on mental health in indigenous languages with a culturally sensitive dimension for the first time, helping over 1 million people in Oaxaca belonging to Indigenous Peoples. This is achieved through one of the three Mexican social transformation projects selected and supported with seed capital by the UNESCO and Nestlé pilot program: Impulso Joven – Because Youth Matters.
Erika Hernández Cuevas and Eduardo Ezequiel Martínez Gutiérrez, from the Network of Interpreters and Intercultural Promoters, explained that the project "La enfermedad de la que nadie habla en el pueblo" (The illness nobody talks about in the village) addresses depression and anxiety in the Indigenous communities of Oaxaca from an intercultural perspective due to the lack of information and training in mother tongues other than Spanish.
In Mexico, it is estimated that three out of 10 people suffer from a mental disorder at some point in their lives, and only about 40% receive treatment. The WHO notes that disorders like depression and anxiety often occur during adolescence and youth. Therefore, the project aims to increase access to mental health for more young people, with a collective and contextual approach prioritizing those suffering from poverty, discrimination, and racism, such as the Indigenous populations.
Erika Hernández explains that the Network created audiovisual material, consisting of short videos in which people from different Indigenous Peoples provided key information to identify symptoms of depression and anxiety, mechanisms for attention, and access to community means in 30 indigenous languages. This number exceeds the 15 languages predominantly spoken in Oaxaca, according to the National Catalog of Indigenous Languages.
Through the videos, it is possible to find encouraging words to seek better mental health and to highlight the possibility of seeking help, as well as to emphasize how external and community factors exacerbate the problem such as poor nutrition, poverty, lack of work, and other contextual elements of historically marginalized communities.
The goal is to reduce inequality gaps that deprived more than 65% of the Indigenous population of Oaxaca of the right to mental health and to promote the creation of personal and collective support networks so that issues like suicides and problematic consumption of legal and illegal drugs are reduced in the long term.
So far, various community and institutional actors have joined, such as the Veredas Psicosociales collective and the Direction General for Crime Prevention and Citizen Participation of the Oaxaca State Government. A key piece has been the Network of Interpreters, a collective of young Indigenous persons who accompany judicial processes of Indigenous people deprived of liberty and the collective construction of knowledge from autonomous territories with an intercultural, community, and decolonial approach.
According to Eduardo Ezequiel Martínez Gutiérrez, who is also the director of the Network of Interpreters and Intercultural Promoters, the 1.1 million people in Oaxaca who speak an indigenous language cannot access health services because professionals are not trained to serve in their mother tongues.
More than 30% of the inhabitants of the state of Oaxaca speak a language different from the government or a language different from that spoken by doctors.
Eduardo also shares: "We realized the importance of the interpreter not only in judicial matters but also in socio-emotional processes, and that's when we asked ourselves, how can we train interpreters who, in addition to speaking an indigenous language and being a communication bridge, are also a crucial bridge when taking therapy?"
The project's guiding principles were to make visible, attend to, and accompany from a perspective that challenges conventional clinical notions of mental health by including the cultural diversity perspectives of Indigenous languages and communities. This approach addresses mental health from a position that questions cultural, social, and political structures.
Hilda Gómez López from the community of San Miguel Reagui explains that mental health is a personal and collective process related to how people live within their closest circle, that is, the community. Sandra García Reyes, an educator participating in the project, says that mental health is about self-care and care about those around us.
Considering that problematic drug use, both illegal and legal, such as alcohol, has increased in Indigenous communities, Eduardo shares: "The change that can be encouraging within a completely different mental health program that encompasses interculturality, intersectionality, and a community perspective."
"The Illness Nobody Talks About in the Village" was one of the 20 projects selected from over 900 applications from young people aged 18 to 29 and youth organizations to the UNESCO and Nestlé pilot program for the Latin America and Caribbean region.
The program granted seed capital of 10,000 dollars and specialized advisory services to strengthen innovative projects with positive social impact in communities. In June, it brought together the selected young people from 11 countries at the UNESCO Villa Ocampo Observatory in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for intensive training sessions, practical workshops, mentorships, and various activities to continue strengthening their initiatives.
The training provided by the Impulso Joven team has enriched our project. Indigenous youth are the link between adults, our ancestors, and childhoods, so youth are key for sharing knowledge and the historical continuity of our Peoples.
Impulso Joven – Because Youth Matters is coordinated by UNESCO's Social and Human Sciences Sector. It is part of the "Initiative for Youth," a global project by Nestlé, and the UNESCO Global Youth Scholarship Plan.
In Mexico, the Sector strengthens the knowledge, skills, capacities, and attitudes of public and private actors, civil society, and academia to enhance inclusive public policies, promote the ethical approach to sciences and technologies, and facilitate dialogue spaces to mobilize the construction of peaceful, inclusive, and resilient societies from an intercultural, gender, and social transformation perspective.
