UPM SERDANG, OCT, 21th- In conjunction with the celebration of National Counseling Month, the UPM Counseling Division held the 2022 National Youth Counseling Seminar program which lasted for 2 days.

Themed "Happy Emotions, Happy Life", the counseling month celebration was held to provide awareness and counseling education to the community regarding the importance of maintaining emotional well-being to ensure a happy life.

This program is an initiative of the UPM Counseling Division to help youth, especially students of Universiti Putra Malaysia, to increase their knowledge and understanding of mental health and increase knowledge and competence for counseling practitioners in line with the demands of counseling professionalism in Malaysia.

According to the Head of UPM's Counseling Division, Dr. Mazila binti Ghazali, the youth group is one of the groups most affected by mental health issues and emotional disturbances. Therefore, the youth need to be exposed early on the importance of taking care of mental health.

The seminar, which was attended by nearly 5500 participants consisting of students, staff and the community from all over Malaysia physically and virtually, is the first youth-focused program implemented at UPM in particular and at public universities in general.

Coinciding with the core of the 8th HEPA strategy, which is campus life that emphasizes physical and mental health by touching on issues surrounding youth life, the UPM Counseling Division has prepared a program that encourages the youth to practice a healthy lifestyle, free from pornography addiction and live a healthy life from cigarettes

This collaborative program between the UPM Counseling Division and the Board of Malaysian Counselors also provides interesting activities such as the Malaysian Board of Counselors exhibition, health check-up exhibition, healthy food demonstration, mental health slot, smoke-free youth forum, premier aerobics activity and various other interesting seminar slots .

The study showed that the entire activity slot that was implemented physically and online successfully gave a positive impact because the majority of participants showed a satisfaction level of more than 90% on the satisfactory and very satisfactory scale. Not only that, the level of participants' knowledge of the issues discussed also increased after attending this seminar.

"If this program achieves its goal after a certain period of time, we will witness a transformation that takes place in the understanding, knowledge and increased awareness of health issues among UPM citizens" said the Head of the UPM Counseling Division, Dr. Mazila binti Ghazali in her speech.

Date of Input: 31/01/2023 | Updated: 31/01/2023 | anis_akmil