Arusha Mental Health Trust

Arusha Mental Health Trust Ltd is a Company Limited by Guarantee, and not having a share capital. AMHT was incorporated on April 27th, 2004, according to Tanzanian Law, The Companies Ordinance (CAP.212).

 

As a Trust, AMHT’s objectives are:

• To facilitate and provide mental health services in Arusha town for people of all ages with various different mental and psychological problems and counseling needs.
• To offer appropriate health education and psychological support also to the clients’ families.
• To act as catalysts for information to individuals, groups, and organizations in the whole area of mental health.
• To explore ways of training people in counseling skills towards ensuring the long term sustainability of the work of the Trust.
• To promote information on community-based rehabilitation of the mentally ill, particularly by public and professional educational programs. These could inform interested parties about the current knowledge and practice of the best psychosocial rehabilitation techniques available and those most adapted to local circumstances.
• To provide the public with a good mental health resource center where up to date books, journals, and the Internet are available to them.
• To prepare various information and education materials, e.g. easy to read, simple explanatory leaflets in English and Swahili (and other languages as needed) on a large number of common mental health disorders. These leaflets will include information on Alcohol and Drug addiction.
• To contribute to training, education, and other activities including cooperation in relevant research and surveys in the areas of mental health and mental illness To be particularly attentive to the need to involve medical colleagues in any specific mental health training events.
• To encourage and raise awareness of, and to help people to understand, mental illness – an area where there is stigma and little knowledge.
• To develop sensitivity on the part of the general public to the stigma associated with alcoholism and drug addiction for the sufferers themselves and their families.
• To be a partner where possible in the development of national policies and programs aimed at increasing investment in research, to improve understanding of mental health and mental health disorders.
• To increase knowledge and skills necessary for work in the field of mental health and the care of the mentally ill.
• To increase the awareness of health decision makers, health professionals, education personnel, and the general public about the magnitude and severity of problems related to mental disorders in childhood and adolescence and to possibilities for their management.
• To increase public awareness, through formal and informal means, of the relationship between mental disability and poverty.
• To especially assist poor people with mental health problems and their families to get appropriate medical care and other related services.
• To act as a catalyst for informed discussion for agencies wishing to set up, or promote, the establishment of drop in centers, half way homes, night shelters, Alcohol and Drug detoxification centers, in-patient psychiatric facilities, special needs classes or schools, and vocational training centers.

Governance
This institution is of a public character established solely for the purpose of relief of poverty or for the advancement of education in accordance with section 5 of the Income Tax Act, No. 33 of 1973, and section 10 of the VAT Act, No. 24 of 1997.

A governing Board of three owners and five Trustees meet on an Annual basis for review and decision making of policy and vision of the Trust.