Our Mission Statement –
Numa was born from our response to the humanitarian crisis caused by the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As the mass migration, including seeking refuge, changes the makeup of a society, mental health plays a key role in adjusting to this change.
Our primary response to the Ukrainian crisis focuses on the mental health of people affected by the war in various ways, including primary, secondary, and vicarious trauma, moral injury, chronic stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions.
We perceive Numa as the space of exploring, creating, and implementing solutions to respond to the humanitarian crisis abroad and in the U.S. We understand the humanitarian crisis in a broad sense, as a failure to provide an individual as well as the communities with tools and/or an environment to assure their wellbeing.
While the war in Ukraine focused the world attention on the refugee crisis in Europe, we recognize that currently 30 million displaced people live in Africa, 12 million – in the Middle East, 2.2 million – in the Asia-Pacific region, (according to UNHCR) there is about 937,000 displaced people in Latin American countries, and 50.8 million internally displaced people live in Australia.
We also recognize the needs in mental health and wellbeing of displaced people and animals affected by political and culturally-motivated violence, economic exploitation, man-caused devastation of the environment, and natural disasters, regardless of a place of one’s birth, life, and displacement. Thus, the displacement of millions of people due to military aggression is as important to us as a lack of access to quality education, or to fair economic opportunities, or to health care, or to food, or to clean environment, or to nurturing cultural and spiritual institutions.
AREAS OF WORK
EDUCATION
We are engaged in transfer of knowledge, in the spirit of dialogue, collaboration and mutual respect, to assess and respond to the needs presented to us, through the means of talks, workshops, consultations, symposia, conferences, as well as written, published, recorded, screened, and published materials.
MENTAL HEALTH
We assess, research, propose and implement the solutions, while assisting our partners in addressing their individual and collective needs regarding mental health and wellbeing of individuals and communities.
CREATIVITY
We recognize the importance of creativity in the well-being of an individual person, a community, and society. We understand that creativity is crucial in maintaining and sustaining resilient identities and mental health, and that a creative expression is crucial in the process of healing an individual, collective, and community.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
This is our hope that Numa will become the nurturing space for people who seek their professional, cultural, moral, and spiritual growth stemming from the desire to serve others individually as well as on the collective level.
CONSULTATION
We provide consultation, assessments, solution finding, and strategy planning in the issues of individual and collective mental health, creativity, civic engagement, and fundraising.
FUNDRAISING
We hope to collect funds to support carefully assessed causes and institutions to promote our mission, while keeping our beneficiaries and ourselves accountable to benefactors.
