Our Current and past projects

WHO WERE THE BENEFICIARIES?

AIFO’s psychosocial project was designed to address the psychosocial needs of Ebola affected children including survivors, family members and communities that were isolated as a result of the outbreak. The project focused on 12 districts throughout the six counties, as this was where a good number of EVD related cases and incidences were concentrated. The majority of beneficiaries where survivors, affected families, children and communities earmarked for the project. However, other children did benefit indirectly through the assistance given to their parents. However, in practice, the projects aimed to provide basic psychosocial assistance to the entire population of EVD victims in the targeted districts and communities, and prevention activities (i.e. counselling) to children experiencing more problems. The direct beneficiaries of the population in need of psycho-social support within the 34 targeted communities were 1,800 people while the total number of indirect beneficiaries of the project was put at 113,060.

Specific objectives:

• Increase the quantity, quality and access to services for the identification and treatment of leprosy provided by primary health centers in the communities involved in the project through specific training of medical and paramedical staff.
• Develop a system of operators of RBC and health volunteers trained for the early identification of people affected by leprosy in communities, strengthening the referral system between the community and primary health centers in the area.
• Improving education and the socioeconomic status of people affected by leprosy and persons with disabilities living in the project, with particular attention to the access of children to primary and secondary school.

Mental Health System, an Introduction

Mental health may be defined as a state of well-being in which
a person realizes his or her own abilities, can work productively, can collaborate with other people and is able to make a contribution to his or her community
(WHO, 2005a). This definition, promoted by the World Health Organization (WHO) is a positive definition of mental health, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Like other health conditions, mental health and mental disorders are linked to multiple factors: biological, sociological and psychological, which are themselves interlinked. There are specific vulnerabilities associated with indicators of poverty, low levels of education and low income. Mental Health can be by affected by policies and practices in domains such as housing, education and childcare. While mental disorders increase the risk of physical diseases, and contribute to unintentional and intentional injury, many health conditions increase the risk of mental disorders and comorbidity complicates help-seeking, diagnosis and treatment and also influences prognosis (Prince et al., 2007). Generally, persons with mental health disorders face many difficulties then accessing mental health care. There are different problematic ways of dealing with severe mental health conditions within health systems and these can be summarized as follows:

• A considerable number of persons with severe mental disorder do not receive any medical or psychosocial help as it lacks in the mental health care system.
• Some of these persons are subject to compulsory treatments involving violence, long-term segregation and/or human rights violation.
• Some of them can only access services which are not adequate or equipped with the necessary knowledge, sufficient experience and/or adequate technologies to meet their care needs.