Nigerians have been advised to stop stigmatisation of people with mental health issues as this could further aggravate their challenge.
Founder of Africa’s Mental Health Matters, Vanessa Adebayo who said this at the second Annual Conference of the Non-Governmental Organisation held in Lagos, noted that it was important to create platforms to discuss mental issues in the continent.
According to her “We need to bring awareness to mental health, there is a lot of programming on ground going that people don’t know about, it’s amazing to be able to have this platform where people can come together and really talk about the things they are doing in an open forum where everybody is in the same venue.”
Vanessa who commended the Federal Government on some of the interventions on mental health, especially the increase in the money allocated to mental health bill, stressed that there was need to do more in addressing the issue in the country.
“Today we have talked about the money being allocated to mental health which has increased by 12, per cent and for me that’s a big improvement, it feels amazing that there are still things on ground going on and I feel there can still be more if we continue to put our best forward and continue to bring awareness.” She stated
While recounting some of the interventions of her NGO, the Global Public Health Professional said Africa Mental Health Matters intend to deepen partnerships with Psychiatric hospitals in the continent in order to
“We just started a new engagement, through community engagement, we are planning with other Psych hospitals, that are on ground with different African countries, and finding ways to better support them we have realised that not all hospitals have unlimited resources especially when it comes to mental health issues.
She stressed that “if we can aid and supply and being able to come around to be able to bring more awareness to the state of the hospitals and what they need, that’s what we will like to continue to do.”
“And not only going into the community and partnering with psychiatric hospitals, we then develop those relationships so that as we continue to grow as an organisation, we can continue to support them through our best ability.”
In his remarks, Founder International Centre for Personality Development, Chinaza Young who was also one of the panellists at the conference, emphasised the need for creating awareness and acceptance of people with mental issues as this would speed up their healing process.
Young emphasised that “we need stronger policies that can enable for these things and organisations thrown in their weight to support platforms like this that are willing to do stuffs so that so that the message can go far.”
“This conference can only end here, but if the content of this conference is taken and published on social media and other media channels more people can have what people who are here heard and then this can help bring out change and drive more people talking about mental issues.” He added