Mental health comprises emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It further influences our cognitive functions, determining how we think, feel, and act. It also helps define how we manage stress, coexist with others, and come up with life-changing decisions. In a study by Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser (2018), 792 million people were indicated to live with a mental health disorder. This is slightly more than one in ten people globally (10.7%). Mental disorders include depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, addictions, among others. Around the world, depression alone affects over 300 million people.

In Africa, the mental well-being of people has hardly been prioritised. A continent infested with raging hunger, poverty, and political instabilities, mental health is often deemed a non-African affair. In our immediate societies, depression has been deemed a condition for the wealthy expatriates trying to fit into a local context. Indeed, we are faced with many challenges, including intractable poverty, infectious diseases, maternal and child mortality, to mention but a few. Mental health is, sadistically, disregarded but deemed a reward for those who have amassed magnificent wealth. 

Such momentous reactions are founded, majorly, on ignorance and existing societal, cultural, and religious stereotypes. A distinctive God-fearing man will, with no remorse, say that suffering from bipolar disorder or addictions is a physical manifestation of curses. Society will alienate the victims, subject them to long hours of prayer and fasting, with the hope that everything will be fine. On the other hand, a traditional religious believer will say that such individuals are bewitched. This claim is accompanied by gazillions of demands and rituals that range from animal sacrifices to mid-night dancing. It is total anarchy! Surprisingly, even some of the elite subscribe to such archaic ideologies. 

Those facing mental health disorders are exposed to detachment, exclusion, and dissociation. They are labeled outcasts and societal misfits. As a result, mental health victims have opted for silence—a better option—rather than shaping their path to stigma. However, research shows that mental health disorders are more likely to be caused by poverty, trauma, violence, bereavement, pressure, exacerbated stress, loss of jobs, hunger, among others. Most of these are solvable causes.  

In Africa, the poverty rate is at 40%, implying that a considerable chunk of the populace is in abject poverty. Several women are exposed to sexual harassment annually. Domestic violence is alarming. With the novel global pandemic, breadwinners (often men) have lost jobs and endured entrenched emaciation, starvation, and famishment in the confines of their homes. This has a severe impact on the latter’s emotional state provoking reactions characteristic of mental disorder. In addition to the youth on the streets, products of structural unemployment, drug abuse, and excessive alcohol consumption have been used as a formidable escape among other self-sabotaging activities. Along these lines, the embattled individuals end up victims of mental disorders like depression, anxiety, among other issues.  

Additionally, the changing technological trends coupled with persuasive advertisements are drawing more and more young people to unhealthy cravings. These unhealthy cravings reticulate more towards social media than any other technological platform, prompting social media users to keep in step with trends. In the rush for these vanities, they lose themselves, they are depressed due to urgent need for instant gratification and social acceptance. It is now that we need to be trained to find emotional satisfaction from within.

In countries like Rwanda, steps have been taken to make the provision of mental health services a priority. In 1995, the Rwandan government developed a mental health policy, making it among the first countries in sub-Saharan Africa to have one. And in 2018, Rwanda’s updated strategic plan for its health sector, set ambitious new targets for expanding mental health care services within the community, through decentralisation and integration into primary health care.

To put this stigma to an end, there should be grassroots, groundbreaking campaigns on the normalisation of conversations around mental health issues. The government and other supportive local and international bodies should set up hospitals, funded and well equipped to provide support. Just like Yuval Noah Harari (2015) opines in his book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, "in most cases, biology supports the goodwill, but culture forbids.” Thus, cultural and religious practices that are contradictory to human biology should be inhibited. Furthermore, safe spaces like youth corners on mental health should be created to provide support to the victims. Once this is done, conversations on mental disorders will be normalised, and no single voice will be stifled. The African citizenry will be psychologically apt and ready to effectively partake in development activities.   

Onderi is a Global Challenges facilitator and Karekezi is a Global Challenges student at the African Leadership University.