{"id":76429,"date":"2025-10-10T11:51:02","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T11:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=76429"},"modified":"2025-10-10T11:51:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T11:51:02","slug":"break-silence-can-tells-churches-calls-for-national-action-on-mental-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/10\/10\/break-silence-can-tells-churches-calls-for-national-action-on-mental-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Break Silence, CAN tells Churches, Calls for National Action on Mental Health"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Samson Adeyanju, Abuja<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), His Eminence Archbishop Daniel C. Okoh, has called for a united national response to Nigeria\u2019s growing mental health crisis, urging churches, government institutions, and civil society to work together to end stigma and provide care for those in need.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at the maiden National Mental Health Summit held on Friday at the National Christian Centre, Abuja, Archbishop Okoh described the event, which coincided with World Mental Health Day as \u201ca timely opportunity to bring light into dark places and to create an environment of compassion and understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With the theme \u201cFaith and Mental Health: Break the Silence,\u201d the CAN leader emphasized that mental illness should not be seen as a sign of weak faith or spiritual failure but as a legitimate health condition that requires empathy, support, and treatment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Church must be a place of refuge, not rejection, for those struggling mentally or emotionally,\u201d he said, urging pastors and church workers to be trained in recognizing distress and connecting people with professional help.<\/p>\n<p>Archbishop Okoh stressed that true healing must be holistic, addressing body, soul, and spirit.<\/p>\n<p>He called on churches to invest in mental health education, train counselors, and speak openly about mental health from the pulpit \u201cto break the culture of silence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also appealed to government agencies to strengthen mental health policies, increase funding, and integrate mental health services into primary healthcare.<\/p>\n<p>Schools, workplaces, and the media, he said, should play active roles in promoting awareness and responsible reporting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis summit is more than a meeting, it is the beginning of a movement,\u201d Archbishop Okoh declared. \u201cA movement where the Church, the government, and the people join hands to ensure that every Nigerian can live with dignity, peace of mind, and a sense of belonging.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Samson Adeyanju, Abuja &nbsp; The President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), His Eminence Archbishop Daniel C. Okoh, has called for a united national response to Nigeria\u2019s growing mental health crisis, urging churches, government institutions, and civil society to work together to end stigma and provide care for those in need. Speaking at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":76430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,1681],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-religion"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76431,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76429\/revisions\/76431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}