For too long, mental health has been considered a luxury. In Africa, it often still is.
On the occasion of World Mental Health Day, Amref Health Africa and Ipsos have released a survey that photographs not only the perception of Italians, but also the distance between awareness and reality. If 62% of our compatriots believe that there malnutrition is Africa’s main health emergencyAlone 6% lists mental health as a priority. Yet, according to the World Health Organization, over a billion people in the worldlives with mental disorders, largely untreated.
The research “Africa and health: the opinion of Italians”, carried out by Ipsos for Amref, shows how the topic of mental health remains marginal in the debate on international cooperation. However, something is changing.
There Generation Z proves to be more sensitive: the 62% of them recognize mental health in Africa as a serious problemcompared to 58% of the national average. A sign that something, at least in the new generations, is moving.
«For too long, mental health has been considered a luxury, especially in Africa. Today we have a duty to treat it for what it is: a right, not a privilege”, he says Roberta Rughettidirector of Amref Italia.
“Filling this gap that leaves 75% of people in low-income countries without care is a shared responsibility and not an option.”
Behind the numbers there are stories. Those of men and women of South Sudanthe youngest country in the world and among the most tormented: two civil wars in ten years, endemic poverty, the fourth highest suicide rate on the continent. Here a fifth of the population suffers or is at risk of developing psychiatric disorders.
In Mundri, in the State of Western Equatoria, Paul Mondayleader of local youth, says: “We have lost everything and we can’t sleep at night, tormented by thoughts of what could still happen.”
AND Evemother of a girl suffering from psychosis, adds: «My daughter Penina set fire to our house. In prison he met a doctor: today, thanks to treatment, he is better».
Stories like these are born inside M(H)INDa project that unites Amref, Ministry of Health of South Sudan, Italian Caritas, Caritas South Sudan, BBC Media Action and the Who Collaborating Center of the University of Veronaco-financed byItalian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS) and from Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
He’s 35 years old, his name is Joy Falatiya and lives in a village in South Sudan. Mother of five children, after her husband kicked her out of the house she found herself homeless, without food and without hope. «I wanted to end it – he says – take my children to the river and jump in with them. I had no support, no one to rely on».
A neighbor offered her a room to take refuge in, but the turning point came when Joy heard about the Caritas assistance center supported by the project M(H)IND by Amref. There he began a journey of psychological support.
«When I went to the market I stopped on the street to talk to myself, at night I woke up scared. Now I can sleep, work, take care of my children. The thought of ending it is gone.”
Today Joy supports herself by preparing and selling ta’amiaa local dish. «If people buy it, we eat that day. If he doesn’t buy it, we sleep on an empty stomach. But at least – he says smiling – I know that I no longer have to give up. I understood that life belongs to God, and that when dark thoughts return I must seek help, not the end.”
