Transcultural Psycho-Social Organization (TPO)

Our Mission

TPO Cambodia's mission is to improve the well-being of Cambodian people with psychosocial and mental health problems, thereby increasing their ability to function effectively within their work, family, and communities.

The Need

Many mentally ill patients in rural Cambodia have been locked up at home– chained to the house or a tree by desperate family members. Poverty and lack of access to mental health services in rural areas impede families from seeking help or even taking care of their mentally ill relatives.

The Solution

To help persons with psychosocial disabilities, TPO Cambodia has initiated the “Operation Unchain” project. The project will provide people with mental disabilities who are/were chained and their families access to mobile psychological, psychiatric, and social services.

Our Impact

"Operation Unchain" will promote access to human rights for persons with psychosocial disabilities and their families. It is the only program in Cambodia that travels anywhere in the country to treat, unchain, and support mentally ill patients and their families.

There are still many mentally ill patients in rural Cambodia who have been locked up at home– chained to the house or a tree by desperate family members. This happens in communities around the country because family members do not know how to deal with the patient’s condition. In addition, the poverty in families and the lack of mental health services available in their community, and the lack of understanding about mental health impede the family from seeking help or to even taking care of their mentally ill relatives.

During TPO’s 20th Anniversary Celebration on Feb 20^th, 2015, His Majesty King Norodom Sihamoni of Cambodia kindly donated US$ 5,000 to TPO Cambodia for mental health work. With the donation, the TPO team set up a charity project called “Operation Unchain” to raise awareness of mental health issues in rural Cambodian communities, and to treat and eventually unchain mentally ill patients. The project demonstrates that there are alternatives to chaining up family members struggling with mental illness.

The TPO team travels anywhere in Cambodia with the aim to treat and unchain as many patients as possible and plans to continue this job until there are no more mentally ill patients chained in Cambodia.

Service:

The project provides psychological and psychiatric services to chronically mentally ill patients and their families. When necessary social and humanitarian support is provided to the patients and families.

Activities:

Mobile teams of psychiatrists, psychologists, and nurses travel to the place where the patients are chained or locked up and prescribe appropriate psychotropic medications.
Community psycho-education to raise awareness about mental health, and reduce stigma.
Tele-psychiatry and tele-counseling are provided to the patient in urgent cases or in the case that the patient cannot be reached geographically.

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