Building resilience. Supporting mental health. Strengthening communities.

Mental health is one of the defining challenges of our time.

In Malta, more than one in six people were estimated to be living with a mental-health disorder even before the COVID-19 pandemic, with anxiety and depression among the most frequently reported conditions. More recent European data point to continuing unmet need: in 2024, 8% of adults in Malta reported an unmet need for mental healthcare.

Across Europe, the picture is equally compelling. Almost half of EU citizens reported experiencing an emotional or psychosocial difficulty during the previous twelve months in a 2023 European survey.

These figures call us to respond to the mental-health difficulties people are experiencing today. They also ask us to think ahead.

Why Resilience?

Resilience gives us a way of doing both.

Resilience is the capacity to adapt in the face of adversity, stress and change; to draw upon internal and external resources; and to recover and reconnect following difficult experiences. It exists within individuals, but also within relationships, communities and the systems that surround us.

Importantly, resilience can be strengthened.

Malta's Mental Health Strategy 2020–2030 places building resilience at the heart of its vision for mental health. It recognises resilience at individual, community and system levels and calls for action across the whole spectrum — from mental-health promotion and prevention to treatment, recovery, rehabilitation and reintegration.

This direction is also reflected at European level, where the EU's comprehensive approach to mental health emphasises prevention, early intervention, access to quality care and meaningful participation following recovery.

The direction is clear.

We need to respond to suffering. And we need to build the conditions that help people, communities and systems become better able to meet difficulty before it becomes crisis.

Our Response: Spreading Resilience

The Resilience Outreach Project is Mnajdra Institute's contribution to this wider challenge.

Our aim is to make resilience knowledge, skills and resources increasingly accessible — creating pathways through which they can move beyond the individual and into relationships, workplaces, organisations, professional communities and wider society.

Our work spans a continuum.

We work preventatively, strengthening resilience as a resource for personal growth, wellbeing and the capacity to navigate stress, uncertainty and change.

We also offer specialised resilience work for people currently experiencing mental-health challenges, including anxiety and depression, supporting the development of psychological, embodied, relational and community resources that can contribute to recovery and reconnection.

These are interconnected parts of the same vision: responding to what is needed today while strengthening our capacity for tomorrow.

A Whole-Person Approach

People may access resilience through different pathways.

Our integral, whole-person approach therefore draws upon multiple gateways to resilience — from understanding the neuroscience and psychology of resilience to stress and nervous-system regulation, embodied practice, movement, voice, rhythm and percussion, storytelling and reflective practice, relationship and community-building.

The aim is not to make resilience education more complicated. It is to create different pathways towards shared learning outcomes, so that more people can engage with resilience in ways that are understandable, practical and relevant to everyday life.

Learning can also continue beyond individual workshops and programmes through our developing digital and blended approaches, including the Resilience App, which is intended to support ongoing education, practice and integration into everyday life.

From Individual Resilience to Community Capacity

Resilience grows within people, and it grows between people.

A person who develops greater awareness and stronger internal resources carries these into their relationships. A practitioner who strengthens their own resilience and relational capacity brings these qualities into the lives of the people they support. A colleague who can recognise distress becomes a resource within a workplace. A leader who understands resilience and psychological safety can influence an organisational culture. A Community of Practice can keep knowledge, connection and learning alive beyond a single programme.

Individual capacity becomes relational capacity. Relational capacity can strengthen organisations and communities.

This is what we mean by spreading resilience.

The next stage of the project is increasingly concerned with how resilience learning can support connection, belonging, participation, mutual support and shared community resources. Some of these pathways are already taking shape; others are areas we are beginning to explore and develop through experience, partnership, evaluation and European learning.

Be Part of What We Are Building

Resilience grows through participation, connection and community.

As our Resilience Outreach Project develops, we would like to hear from people who are interested in learning more about resilience, contributing to more resilient communities, or exploring the possibility of becoming a Community Resilience Champion within their own community or setting.

You might be interested as an individual, or through a school, local council, workplace, organisation or community group.

We are currently building our network of interested people and communities. By getting in touch, you can receive further information as the project develops, hear about upcoming learning opportunities, and join conversations and gatherings exploring how resilience can be strengthened and shared within communities.