Ahead of Mental Health Awareness Month in May, Guyanese-New Yorker and Advocate Antoine B. Craigwell conducted several workshops at the PolyClinic in partnership with the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) Family Medical Program to address the illness.

Mental Health Awareness Month, which has been observed in the US since 1949, inspired Craigwell’s initiative, which recently took him across the Republic to empower citizens to take care of their mental health.

Craigwell, an award-winning journalist, documentarian, convenor and Caribbean Life Impact Award nominee, told Caribbean Life that the workshops began at GPHC and continued across the country, with day sessions at Bina Hill Lecture Hall in Anni, North Rupununi, Centre for Change on Railway Line Embankment, East Bank, Port Mourant Hospital, Mibicuri Cottage Hospital, Blackbush Polder, Skeldon Hospital, Amelia’s Ward, Linden, the University of Guyana, and other locations, engaging nationals of all walks of life.

The facilitator, presenter, and founder/CEO of Depressed Black Gay Men Inc. (DBGM), a non-profit organization committed to raising awareness of the underlying factors contributing to depression and suicidal ideation in Black gay men, said some of the subtopics included understanding mental illness, wellness and health, self-care, stress and anxiety, intergenerational trauma, domestic and intimate partner violence, and pitfalls of suicide and self-harm/injury.

The four-hour workshops for Guyanese 18 years old and older included interactive, engaging, and participatory sessions, and attendees obtained a wide range of knowledge.

Craigwell said, “As the sojourn to my homeland ends, I reflect on the mental health awareness workshops. I was able to conduct across the country, and I am extremely grateful to the many people who believed in what I had to offer, recognized the need for what I am offering, and did everything in their power to ensure these workshops took place,” he said.

He added, “from the first workshop with family medicine doctors; communities at Annai, North Rupununi; UG medical students, medical students at Georgetown American University; with community members at the Centre for Change.”

He added that he then went to “Berbice for workshops at Port Mourant Hospital, Mibicuri Cottage Hospital, and Skeldon Hospital Center; to the Education Lecture Theater at the University of Guyana; to Shanghai Residence in Amelia’s Ward, Linden; and finally, to Okoo neighborhood in Canal #1 Polder, West Bank Demerara.”

The champion advocate explained that in one month, he conducted 13 four-hour workshops, which provided basic information on mental health and wellness to more than 350 people.

“At each workshop, along with making them safe spaces for those attending, I shared in their pain and suffering and witnessed their resilience in the face of lives that would cripple an ordinary person, many Guyanese in these workshops understood their role, their responsibility to take care of themselves and each other, and to look out, be aware of each other, especially, the unexpressed, non-verbal communications, and, more importantly, to listen without judgment to those who are trying to ask for help; being open and prepared to provide assistance – to prevent a suicide.”

“Many shared that they wanted me to return and do more workshops. I look forward to returning and going to places I was unable to get to this time around, and if time permits, to revisit some of these communities again,” he shared.

In June 2023, Craigwell received the Mental Health America’s Clifford W. Beers Award and the NYC Gay City News Healthcare Advocate 2023 Impact Award.

The Bernard Baruch College of the City University of New York graduate produced the documentary “You Are Not Alone” and facilitates discussion for depression in Black gay men.

Craigwell also presented a poster exhibition, “Examining Depression and HIV in Black gay men,” at the 2012 International AIDS Conference in Washington, DC.