Context
Among the most vulnerable groups that were affected by the crisis brought by the COVID-19 pandemic were migrant women. Many migrant women, especially BIPOCs (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour), suffer from isolation, anxiety, and depression over accumulating loans and interest payments, loss of livelihoods, or the prospect of having to return to or stay locked down in abusive or violent environments. Their limited access, or complete lack thereof, to services, support networks, and institutions exacerbates, together with isolation, their already difficult situation.
The need for special support initiatives to help migrant women address their problems related to mental health and thereby enable them to participate in political and democratic life is paramount. Gabriela Germany aims to contribute to these initiatives by offering a free mental health training-workshop for women with migration background, especially BIPOCs.
This is a two-day online training-workshop that will have integrated breathwork for wellness sessions (before the workshop on the 19th and after the workshop on the 26th). To acquire a wider and deeper understanding of the theme, and to learn various methods of breathwork for wellness, participants are highly encouraged to participate in both training-workshop days.
This initiative is supported through the WE-EMPOWER Project led by WIDE+ (Women in Development Europe) with funding from the European Union.
To register, please click here or here.
For inquiries, please contact us at: gabriela.alemanya@gmail.com
Social media event posts:
About the Trainers
Dr. Andrea Martinez is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines – Manila and a mental health practitioner at MIND UK. In her current work in MIND UK, she works with clients with dual (complex) diagnoses and who are experiencing multiple levels of social deprivation. She advocates for their rights to ensure that their voices are heard and facilitates mental health workshops and mental health literacy programmes. She earned her PhD in Psychology at Kings College London in 2023. Her research was about the mental health and help-seeking behaviour of Filipino migrant domestic workers and developed a culturally appropriate mental health intervention using the UK Medical Research Council framework for complex intervention.
Kim Gerlach, she/her, is a scent practitioner and breathworker. Her olfactive work is focused on the cultivation of presence and the creation of new pathways our bodies and minds can follow to heal. She seeks to expand the medium by building and resolving the tension between the familiar and the unknown. She addresses the topics of finding intuition and inner guidance, multiculturalism, and the power of breath.
Organizers: Gabriela Germany
GABRIELA is an alliance of more than 200 grassroots women’s organizations, institutions, and programs spread across the Philippines. It seeks to fight for the liberation of Filipina women and the poor majority against oppression and repression. It organizes women among the most oppressed sectors of farmers, workers, urban poor, and students. It undertakes campaigns on women’s rights, gender discrimination, violence against women (VAW), women’s health and reproductive rights, and provides direct services for marginalized women and victims of VAW.
Gabriela Germany is a local chapter of GABRIELA, organizing primarily among the Filipina women diaspora in Germany. It is a collective of Filipinas celebrating their mulit-faceted identitites, revolutionary history, and rich culture. They work to build communities in Germany that are invested in educating, serving, and advocating for the rights and welfare of Filipinas locally and globally. They actively forge friendships, solidarity, and alliances with other local and international migrant women organisations in their local areas of work to support each other and advance common advocacies. It is a very young but very dynamic organization, established in 2017 and formally launched in March 2018. Most of its members are currently based in Berlin.
