According to evidence, one person in every five – 20 percent – of people who live in conflict zones have some form of mental health issue (ICRC, 2021). Hence, in a conflict affected area, people suffer from mental health issue three times more than the general public and this is not just an issue of prevalence but an issue of access.

I visited the National Museum in Kuala Lumpur a few months ago and saw the Patani Malay kingdom stamps being exhibited. I quickly turned on my phone camera, and sent the picture to a Patani social worker who attended a workshop IMAN organised on para-counsellor training in early October 2022, to train Patani social workers on counselling skills.

2022 started with some hope that the year will be better than 2021, but alas the realities of the socio-economic fallout of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns started to kick in.

Malay-Muslim’s identity and Malaysia’s political arena are inseparable. Due to the existence of ethnoreligious based parties such as United Malay National Organisation (UMNO), Parti Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), and other ethnic minority parties such as Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and Malaysian Indian Council (MIC), ethnoreligious issues have always been used for political mileage.

As this advisory goes ‘to print’ so to speak, 2021 is ending on a rather sombre note. Many Malaysians are still trying to recover from the worst flooding experienced since the 1971 Kuala Lumpur floods which paralysed the city.

In a previous brief, I wrote and discussed about how Malay-Muslim women were increasingly being socialised into a hardline brand of Islam.