The seventy-second session of the Regional Committee for the Western Pacific in 2021 will discuss major health issues relevant to the Region including school health, primary health care, COVID-19, tuberculosis, and traditional and complementary medicine. This story is part of a series examining how each health topic affects individuals in the Region.
Empathy and artificial intelligence could be the keys to creating a positive mental health culture in classrooms, according to Timothy Liau, an engineering student in Singapore.
Bullying at school left its mark on him from a young age.
“It got way worse in secondary school. There would be this bully that would take my stuff and throw it across the class. If I tried to stop him, I would be hit,” he said.
“At one point, I went up to ask, ‘Why are you doing this to me? Why me? What did I do to you?’
“The response was, ‘Because it’s fun’.
“This caused me to feel very unmotivated with anything to do with school. I would dread going to school. Just before I entered the classroom, I would stop outside and wonder, ‘What is this guy going to do to me today?’”
Stigma associated with therapy and counselling meant seeking help seemed out of the question. Instead, he used exercise to cope.
“As the bullying affected me more, I used running as the main outlet for managing my emotions, managing my mind. Because of that, I managed to break out of my depressive emotions.”
More recently, while studying computer engineering, Mr Liau mulled over ways to address bullying and help creative a heathy school environment.
“Having experienced bullying in the past, I understand the effects it can have on people, and it gives me a strong motivation to address it.
“I thought of an idea to address bullying using empathy and AI (artificial intelligence). I am creating this tool, Empathly. It’s a keyboard extension that tells the user what the other person might feel receiving the text before they receive it.
“Empathy is not something you can build in one day. It’s something that needs to be worked on like a muscle.”
Unfortunately, Mr Liau still sees a need to address classroom culture and remove stigma from mental well-being.
“Being in school right now, I still see bullying happening around in the classrooms.
“What needs to be improved on is to create a positive mental health culture where people talk about it openly. We’re also making more students think about mental health in a school setting and helping contribute to their own school community.”
Ensuring good health for current generations of children and young people like Mr Liau – through providing safe, nurturing environments at school, and supporting them to adopt the healthy habits that are the foundation of long, healthy lives – requires a special focus on health in schools. Nurturing the health of future generations is a priority theme at this year’s Regional Committee.
The Western Pacific Region is home to 611 million children and adolescents aged 0–19 years, and a large majority of them spend a third of their time each year in school. Despite advances in improving the health of children and adolescents in the Region in recent decades, substantial health challenges and risks persist, including an alarming rise in childhood overweight and obesity, injuries, violence, substance abuse, mental health conditions and unsafe environments.
Prolonged school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic have impacted students’ learning as well as their physical and mental health.
All of these issues pose challenges for the health of children today, but of even greater concern is their impact on the health and well-being of this generation in the years and decades to come.
To promote the positive development and health of children and adolescents, WHO has developed the draft Regional Framework on Nurturing Resilient and Healthy Future Generations in the Western Pacific in close collaboration with Member States, stakeholders, partners and experts. The Regional Framework supports countries and areas in the Region to achieve three goals: entrench healthy behaviours that stick; develop the capacity of schools to influence the community using a “spillover” effect; and invest in schools today to build a healthier tomorrow.
To achieve these goals, the Framework details suggested actions for schools, governments and WHO, which can be adapted to country-specific contexts. In line with this Framework, WHO will provide technical support to Member States to develop, update and implement national guidelines, strategies and tools. Further, WHO will compile data, research and case studies relevant to this Framework and will work with Member States to facilitate cross-country sharing of replicable local solutions and best practices.