CAPE MENTAL HEALTH SOCIETY 

Under the slogan Flying Free, No Strings Attached, CMHS helps children and adults with mental health problems as well as with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities to achieve independence, better mental health, and quality of life. CMHS’s work blends disability services, community development, and poverty alleviation with integrated local resource mobilization. In addition to counseling, education, and day care, CMHS assists the disabled with its program to protect victims of sexual abuse. In addition, the organization promotes numerous training and employment projects, which enhance the social integration and income opportunities for those with disabilities. Expanding the outreach and adding value to its products, CMHS has established a broad range of partnerships. For example, under its contract and grant with the Umsobomvu Youth Fund, the organization trains young people with intellectual disabilities to support their employment. CMHS also generates funds through contractual agreements with businesses and corporate organizations in the Cape Town area and Beaufort West. This income source offers their employees assistance programs, training, stress management programs, and trauma debriefing workshops.

In 2002, CMHS established an alliance with Ernst & Young, whose team trained the organization’s staff in micro-business management skills and good governance. The key fundraising event for CMHS is the International Kite Festival, which the organization has successfully utilized for years as a powerful tool to raise public awareness about the problems of the disabled and enhance their social integration. Through these initiatives, CMHS has managed to combine income generation, cost recovery, and fundraising, while gaining publicity and deepening its outreach to the disabled.