Cross-border integration, system breaking the ice
At the SkyPark at Marina Bay in Singapore, a meeting unfolded with unusual eccentricities. The people seated around the round table were unexpected: Cheng Han sat next to Ms. Lim, Singapore's chief urban planner; Nila sat next to a senior advisor from the Ministry of Education; Luca was in a low voice with an official from the Economic Development Board; and Kadir was exchanging business cards with a representative from the Community Development Council.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Cheng Han said at the beginning, "we are gathered here today because we all realize that a person's mental health is inextricably linked to the city they live in, the education they receive, and the environment in which they work."
Ms. Lin nodded and continued, "We planners are beginning to realize that urban spatial design directly affects residents' sense of well-being. However, we lack the expertise in psychology."
When the walls of expertise begin to crumble, new possibilities emerge.
This cross-disciplinary dialogue was sparked by Cardil's surprising discovery in the favelas of Brazil: in one Rio de Janeiro neighborhood, he saw a 15% drop in anxiety rates simply by adding a few public green spaces and a community garden.
“We have been treating individuals,” Kadir wrote in his findings report, “but perhaps we should start treating the environment.”
Meanwhile, Nila's educational research in Northern Europe yielded another insight: Finnish schools fully integrate mental health education into their daily curriculum, resulting in students not only stronger mental resilience but also significantly improved academic performance.
“We treat mental health as a ‘problem’ that needs to be dealt with separately,” Nila explains, “but in the most advanced systems, it’s a natural part of education.”
These findings gave rise to the foundation's "system-wide intervention" plan, but within its first month, the plan encountered institutional inertia.
It is easy to change thinking, but difficult to change the system.
The first "Urban Mental Health Design Workshop" nearly reached a deadlock. Urban planners focused on efficiency and aesthetics, educators emphasized academic outcomes, entrepreneurs prioritized productivity, and psychologists were obsessed with diagnostic criteria. Each profession spoke its own language and defended its own domain.
“We need a common goal,” Cheng Han said when the meeting reached an impasse. “Not to turn urban planning into psychotherapy, but to make urban planning take psychological impact into account.”
A turning point came with a pilot project in Singapore, where the foundation persuaded the government to designate a neighborhood about to be redeveloped as a pilot area for a "mental health-friendly community."
The project brought together a peculiar team of psychologists, architects, educators, community workers, and even an acoustic engineer. In the first few weeks, they practically tortured each other.
Architects designed a beautiful walking path, but psychologists pointed out that the lack of rest areas would discourage anxious people; educators proposed establishing an after-school tutoring center, but community workers worried that this would become a new source of stress; acoustic engineers wanted to reduce noise, but local elderly people preferred the familiar hustle and bustle of the streets.
True integration begins by letting go of professional arrogance and learning to see the world through the eyes of others.
A breakthrough occurred during the third on-site visit. The team invited community residents to walk through the neighborhood and listen to their stories. An elderly woman pointed to a street corner and said, "There used to be a big tree here, and we used to chat under it. But then it was cut down for road construction, and we rarely see each other anymore."
This story sparked an epiphany for the architect, who redesigned the plan, not only preserving the existing trees but also adding several small spaces that encourage social interaction.
An even more profound shift is happening in education. Nila's team is working with schools to not just add "mental health classes" but to redesign entire school campuses: integrating mindfulness exercises into recess, replacing some exams with group projects, and even adjusting classroom lighting and color.
Six months later, bullying incidents in the pilot schools decreased by 40%, the rate of students seeking help increased by 65%, and even more surprisingly, academic performance also improved significantly.
"When we reduce the psychological burden on students," the principal said at the sharing session, "they actually have more energy to devote to learning."
At the same time, Cheng Han's team has opened up new fronts in the corporate world. They are collaborating with human resources experts to redefine "employee benefits": from free psychological counseling to optimizing workflows, improving management methods, and even adjusting office layouts.
After implementing the recommendations, one tech company saw its employee turnover rate drop by half. "We thought we needed to increase our benefits budget," the CEO marveled, "but it turns out we just needed to give our employees more autonomy and respect."
The antidote to systemic problems often lies in the reconstruction of the system itself.
The most successful cases come from the community level. Kadir's team created a "Community Mental Health Index" to transform abstract concepts into measurable indicators: public space utilization, frequency of neighborhood interactions, participation in community activities, etc.
With this tool, they persuaded local governments to include mental health in their municipal performance metrics, and now a community’s well-being is as important as its GDP growth.
At the project's anniversary forum, Singapore's Minister of Health unexpectedly attended and announced that the world's first "Mental Health City Planning Department" would be established, reporting directly to the Ministry of National Development.
“We are finally recognizing,” the minister said in his speech, “that mental health is not the exclusive responsibility of the health sector, but a whole-of-government mission.”
This breakthrough set off a chain reaction. In the following months, the Finnish Ministry of Education announced that it would expand the foundation's mental health education model to all schools nationwide. The Dutch Ministry of Housing and Urban Development established standards for mentally healthy buildings. Even the International Monetary Fund began discussing how to incorporate national happiness into economic assessments.
Luca wrote in his summary report:
“We are no longer just fixing broken hearts, but starting to cultivate an environment in which healthy hearts can grow. The impact of this shift could be a thousand times greater than any single psychological intervention we make.”
As night fell, Cheng Han stood on the observation deck of Marina Bay Sands, overlooking this meticulously planned city. The lights shone brightly, but what he saw was not prosperity, but countless daily lives shaped by the environment.
He thought of the community garden in the Brazilian slum, the smiling faces of the children in the Finnish school, and the elderly people in the pilot community in Singapore who gathered under the trees to chat again.
At that moment, he understood that the foundation had crossed an important threshold: from treating individuals to improving systems, from responding to problems to preventing them, and from professional fields to public issues.
And it all starts with that simple understanding: mental health is never just a matter of psychology. It is related to how we design cities, how we organize education, how we run businesses, and how we build communities.
In other words, it’s about how we live together.
“The mind is not an island; its health requires the nourishment of the entire social ecosystem.”
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
