UN System Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being Strategy Implementation Board had requested colleagues to share their poetry work in any language, form, style or topic to raise awareness about mental health. Fifty submissions from all corners of the world – from Abyei, Banjul, Beirut, Damascus, Entebbe, Geneva, London, Mopti, New Delhi, New York, Nairobi, Vienna, Zalingei – to name but a few; and from colleagues in UN, IAEA, UNICEF, UNFPA, FAO, IMO among others were received, in English, French, Chinese, Farsi, Italian, Hindi and Arabic. These poems offer unique insights into the minds, emotions and souls of our colleagues dispersed throughout the world, united by experiences of love and loss, joy and pain, hope and despair. Poems are included in their original language, accompanied by English translation.

An old adage holds that joy shared is doubled and grief shared is halved. We hope that this book will take you on a journey, inward and outward, and help you to find solace, restore hope, and admire the power of human resilience and perseverance. As you browse through these pages, we hope that you will feel connected to a greater sense of being and community, which is so needed in the tumult of our time.

Mental health matters, and together we can change what is possible and necessary

Danijela Milić and Jack Davis, project leaders from the UN Mental Health Board, March 2021

Read the ebook here: https://www.un.org/en/healthy-workforce/files/Sauti.pdf