LETTER FROM WEST AFRICA
For two decades, Valérie da Silveira has been a hair care specialist. From morning to night, she braids, weaves, combs and straightens hair in her hair salon on the corner of a side street in Lomé, the capital of Togo. Over the past year, the 42-year-old has developed a new expertise: caring for troubled minds and hearts. As soon as she detects signs of decline in her clients, she encourages them to trust in the familiar decor of her small shop, amidst bundles of padlocks, jars of nail polish and bottles of shampoo.
Valérie da Silveira offers them her attention, gives them some advice and tries to comfort them. “Before, when some people told me about their problems, I didn’t know what to tell them other than to go see the pastor.he says with a rueful smile. I am not a doctor, but I have learned to listen to them, to calm them down and, when necessary, to recommend that they consult a real doctor.
In June 2023, the Togolese woman received training in first aid for psychosocial disorders. Like her, more than 150 hairdressers from Togo, Cameroon and the Ivory Coast have benefited from this mini educational course created two years ago by an NGO, the Bluemind Foundation, with a dual objective: to destigmatize mental health problems and improve the well-being of women in a region where there is a serious lack of therapists.
According to the foundation’s figures, Togo has only five psychiatrists for eight million inhabitants. The situation is even more tense in Cameroon, where there are ten for a population of 26 million people. On average, all of Africa has fewer than two specialized health professionals per 100,000 inhabitants, or ten times less than the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO). African states are also those that allocate the least resources to the treatment of mental illness, with less than $0.50 per inhabitant. These shortcomings, coupled with the economic and security crises facing the continent, have led to Africa recording the highest rate of suicide deaths in the world, according to the WHO in 2022.
Taboo
Despite immense needs, mental health issues often remain taboo in African societies. “My family did not look favorably on me going to the psychiatrist”recalls Franco-Cameroonian Marie-Alix de Putter, founder of the Bluemind Foundation. However, it is these consultations, she says, that gave her “bran [la] life ” following the death of her husband, French theology professor Eric de Putter, who was murdered in 2012 on a university campus in Yaoundé (Cameroon), where he was on a mission.
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