The special commemorative edition of the interactive monthly community engagement (IMCE) series of the Asido Foundation was on the theme of this year’s world mental health day celebrations (October 10). It held virtually on the 22nd of October, bringing together over 130 participants from across Africa and beyond, including mental health professionals, advocates, caregivers, policymakers, and individuals with lived experience of mental health challenges. The session was hosted by Gbonjubola Abiri, Chief Operating Officer of the Asido Foundation, and featured four panelists with lived experience who shared personal journeys and recommendations for systemic change in mental health care across Africa.

Key concepts emanating from the Webinar Were:

• Lived Experience Advocacy: The principle that individuals who have personally navigated mental health challenges hold unique and irreplaceable insight that must inform policy, program design, and care delivery. This is in line with the theme for this year’s world mental health day celebrations.
• Mental Health Stigma and Discrimination: Societal shame, silence, and misunderstanding remain significant barriers that prevent individuals from seeking or receiving timely care. This further underpins the salience of the advocacy work of Asido Foundation and others.
• Treatment Gap: The significant disparity between the number of people who need mental health care and those who actually receive it is huge, and is worsened by limited availability of mental health professionals, affordability barriers, and systemic neglect
• Community-Based Mental Health: Mental health support and interventions must be embedded in homes, schools, churches, and communities — and not confined to clinical settings or hospitals.
• Project HOPE: An initiative by the Asido Foundation launched in 2021 to identify, treat, rehabilitate, and reintegrate homeless individuals living with mental illness, operating in three phases: street identification, inpatient care, and community-based rehabilitation. A documentary showcasing success stories that have returned to normal functioning was highlighted as proof that recovery is possible.

Lived Experiences of Mental Health Challenges By the Panelists

Four panelists shared deeply personal accounts of living with mental health conditions, each reflecting common themes of early onset, delayed diagnosis, family dysfunction, stigma, and eventual advocacy.

Moma (Cameroon) shared a lifelong journey with depression beginning in childhood, compounded by parental conflict, early losses of a nephew and cousin, anxiety, panic attacks, and suicidal ideation from age 14. She experienced severe postpartum depression after the birth of her second child, including depersonalization and derealization disorder, and faced dismissal from family members and language barriers when seeking care in a French-speaking region as an English speaker. She eventually found her way to a psychiatrist and therapy and today considers herself approximately 80% healed. She is now a mental health advocate and founder of a community-based organization in Cameroon.

Ebunoluwa Ogunyemi (Nigeria), Deputy Program Manager at the Asido Foundation, described a journey that began in adolescence amid family dysfunction and multiple caregivers. She stumbled into care during a university internship at the Child and Adolescent Clinic of the University College Hospital, where she recognized her own experiences in the patients she observed. She disclosed suicidal ideation to a doctor after nearly acting on it, was diagnosed with depression, and began psychiatric and psychological care. She has dedicated her life and work towards helping others suffering in silence to receive the help they need through the Asido Foundation.

James Nyabera (Kenya) grew up in a family where silence was the language of suffering, witnessing his late father struggle with mental health challenges after losing his job. As the firstborn, he carried unprocessed grief and functional depression, hiding his pain through academic productivity. In 2017, friends noticed behavioral changes and connected him to a college psychologist, where he was diagnosed with childhood trauma, PTSD, and functional depression. This experience inspired him to launch the campaign "A Man Must Cry" to challenge harmful stereotypes around masculinity and break the silence around men's mental health, noting that male suicide rates are 3 to 4 times higher than female rates.

Chilungamo M'manga (Malawi), a licensed clinical psychologist and founder of Mentor to Mentor, described symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) beginning around age 6 or 7, manifesting as extreme disgust responses, compulsive washing, and inability to use unwashed items. These behaviors were mocked or dismissed by family and peers for years. It was only during her psychology degree, when she studied mental health conditions, that she identified what she had been experiencing. Unable to access a psychiatrist, she used self-help resources to manage her condition and later opened a private practice and founded Mentor to Mentor to raise awareness and provide support in schools and universities.

Conclusions

• Mental disorders are common, with 1 in 4 persons experiencing a mental disorder at some point in their lives. Every 40 seconds, someone dies by suicide globally, majority of whom have background mental disorders. Several barriers restrict access to care for affected persons.
• The Asido Foundation calls on individuals, organizations, and governments to support mental health advocacy through financial donations, partnerships, and amplification on social media