MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS MOBILE CLINICS

Changemaker: Blessings Kasenge

Country of Implementation: Zambia

There has been a rise in suicide cases among young people, with suicide being among the leading

causes of death among young people. For this reason, Blessings and his group of friends decided to take mental health services as close to the communities as possible. They realized that there are inadequate mental health services and this could be among the reasons why young people and community members resort to taking matters into their own hands. This group was constituted of medical doctors and students aged between 20 and 30 and all well-motivated and passionate about mental health issues.

The project ran for a year between 25th June 2022 and 24th June 2023. It targeted 12 communities in Lusaka through the use of community mental mobile clinics and outreach programs that constituted door-to-door campaigns and debates on mental health. The team was in close contact with psychiatrists at the University Teaching Hospital. The project was an integration of a wide range of services which included counseling services, mini-mental state examinations, and free consultation services. The project targeted community members of different ages as long as they were at risk of developing mental health challenges.