By Sofia Andrea Baldonado
In joint celebration of this year’s virtual Lasallian Festival and Students’ Week, the Lasallian Mission Office (LMO) held a Reflection Plenary Session via Microsoft Teams on Tuesday, April 20, focusing on the mental health discussion amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
De La Salle Brother Rey Mejias, FSC highlighted in his speech the importance of identifying the possible effects of the pandemic on the mental health condition of the Lasallian students.
“[I am] certain about [the] health risk, loss of loved ones, and increasing financial loss that have contributed to widespread emotional distress, increased risk of psychiatric disorder, post-traumatic anxiety and depression disorder. These have escalated the aftermath of the pandemic,” Br. Mejias stated.
Moreover, LMO has emphasized the goal of establishing mindful resiliency on how the student body can manage to pull through and how they can embody the Lasallian mission and values in the new normal setting.
Br. Mejias clarified that the concept of mindful resilience is not directly about the capacity of recovering immediately to where he said, “I’m not suggesting that we [should] simply suck it up…what I’m suggesting is that there might be an easy way to face uncertainty than raging against reality. Through mindful resilience, we can learn to respond to our lives in a much more creative way,”
Participants’ feedback
Dr. Gemma Gosgolan, a professor from the Psychology Department, shared her appreciation for the session as she was enlightened with the benefits of mental health awareness in understanding the struggles of students.
“Most of our young people are actually suffering more from the pandemic, [and] being educated by this session [with] the research [stating] that there are more and more young people [getting] affected by this pandemic, I think that is beneficial in terms of understanding where the [problems of the] students are coming from,” Dr. Gosgolan said.
Furthermore, Micha Rivera (COM12) explained how her experiences relate to her as a student who is adjusting to the new remote learning environment.
“For me, lalo [na’t] pandemic, doon ako mas na-enlighten na para magkaroon ako ng versatility kung paano ko [papakinggan] ‘yung mental health ko in any situation…mas lalo akong nagkaroon ng additional knowledge [in] ways on how I [can] recover myself sa lahat ng struggles na na-e-experience or na-e-encounter ko.” Rivera stated.
To deepen the discussion regarding the Lasallian mission initiatives, the Lasallian Sectoral Reflection Sessions were divided into concentrating themes for the students, for the faculty and staff, and the administrators and Administrative Service Personnel later that afternoon.
