Sandra Griffiths, Coordinator of the MELLOW Campaign (Men Emotionally Low Looking for Other Ways), which focuses on the needs of African Caribbean men in East London, talks about the changing nature of Black masculinity, and how race and gender impact on mental health issues. She also examines how mental health problems can be caused by the need to find answers to fundamental spiritual questions, and can be a springboard for creativity, positive change and transformation. I had been working in mental health for about ten years when I was approached by various people about getting involved with the MELLOW Campaign, as I had experience of having been involved with other Black mental health initiatives. People were doing some thinking about how to address the needs of young Black men. They were trying to work out how best to have the most impact.
When I went along to a meeting, I thought, there is a lot of potential here to do something really different - I hesitate to say 'innovative'. It sounds like something has been plucked out of the air. A lot of things people describe as innovative have probably been happening underground and never had overground exposure.
Our men are so over-represented in mental health institutions compared to their white counterparts, particularly in the hard end of mental health services - special hospitals, acute wards, forensic units. Our men are there. You only have to go in there and you just see it. This has been an issue for many years, and people have written a range of research, done PhDs on it, and made a name for themselves, but actually, services have not improved. And meanwhile, back on the ranch, people are still going in. They are going in, they are coming out, they are going back in. We have to break that cycle.
So that is one of the main reasons why we were set up - to address that particular address issue. Not just by raising awareness of it, because actually, quite a few people know some of it. They don't know the total picture, and the total picture is not just about why some of the people are in the system, but also looking at the social, political and economic reasons why people are in there, as looking at the changing nature of Black maleness and how people make sense of that.
