Human Rights in Mental Health-FGIP

The Global Initiative on Psychiatry uses a locHuman Rights in Mental Health-FGIP is an international non-profit foundation that was founded in 1980 as the International Association on the Political Use of Psychiatry (IAPUP). In 1980-1989 it coordinated the campaigns against the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union and Romania, and in several other countries. Starting in 1989-1990, it became actively involved in developing humane, ethical and user-oriented mental health services in Central and Eastern Europe and the former USSR. Since 2005 it is also active in other countries, e.g. in South-East Asia, Sri-Lanka, Africa and the Caribbean. All these years, human rights have remained the cornerstone of our work. We actively support the development of mental health care services in developing countries. We strive to ensure that every person can participate in society as fully as possible, irrespective of the fact whether he/she is a hospitalized psychiatric patient in Sri Lanka, a person with an intellectual disability in Ukraine or an AIDS-orphan in South Africa. In order to bring about structural reforms in mental health, we work at grass root level together with local partners and at governmental level with politicians and policy makers. In our work cultural-specific issues have a prime focus.