Welcome to the new mental health department at the International Center of Tilburg (ICT)! For those of you who are new, the ICT has been a point of reference for internationals in Tilburg. It’s a place where you can find help/advice, learn Dutch, meet other internationals and even find support for your mental health.
Neeta Maharaj, head of the mental health department at ICT, offered psychological consultations to those who were struggling with their mental health while living abroad. During her work at ICT she started to notice that people often felt lonely and had difficulties in building meaningful relationships in The Netherlands.
It is no surprise that these feelings have been aggravated by the pandemic, thus the need for more mental health support to internationals in Tilburg. In order to address this increasing need, we’ve decided to form a mental health department at ICT with three new services:
Sympathetic ear with Marina Pacini: every Monday (2pm-6pm) you can book a session with Marina at our cultural café. She´s a healthcare psychologist from Spain that has already been living in Tilburg for 2 years. She knows firsthand the struggles of being an international. Therefore she listens and advises from both her personal and professional experience.
Loneliness intervention with Freya Kügel: for her MD’s research, Freya studied the effects of loneliness and she designed a loneliness intervention (with the supervision of Neeta Maharaj) for internationals living in Tilburg. This research was held at the ICT last year and we think it will be a good idea to include it as a bi-monthly activity.
Life skills program with Letizia: in collaboration with Neeta and Tilburg University, this program is being developed to support young graduates (who are a big part of the ICT community) make their transition from university to the work environment. The pressure of it commonly has an impact on the student’s wellbeing, therefore the importance of learning the right skills to address it.
Also, we’re thinking about posting a monthly blog article on mental health issues: either informative articles, answering questions or general tips for your mental well-being. If you have a question or suggestion, we’d love to hear it from you!
In conclusion, the mental health department at ICT aims to be a point of reference for anyone who’s struggling while building a home in Tilburg. We understand the difficulty of it and we’ve got your back! Would you like to learn more about it? You can always reach us by email, website or at the café.
See you soon,
ICT’s Mental Health Team