Physical health is often the focus of healthcare advocacy groups, but mental health needs to be improved around the world just as much. While some still consider mental health a taboo subject, it is important to improve the lives and prospects of those in poverty. The violence and trauma that often go hand-in-hand with extreme poverty can cause mental health issues. Proper care is often lacking but organizations are stepping up to the challenge. There are several organizations providing mental health resources in developing countries.

The Africa Mental Health Research and Training Foundation (AMHRTF)

AMHRTF focuses on providing mental health services in developing countries like Kenya. The organization prioritizes community health, making it a point to educate and serve community members of all ages from children to the elderly. It puts special focus on pregnancy and postpartum mental healthcare and trauma-related mental health disorders. In addition, the organization employs professionals with a wide range of specialties in order to implement holistic care. AMHRTF aims to make mental healthcare in Kenya available and accessible.

Strong Minds

Strong Minds focuses on providing mental health services in developing countries throughout the African continent. Specifically, the organization works toward ending Africa’s depression epidemic and reaching the most vulnerable women with depression in sub-Saharan Africa. After conducting research on the most effective and cost-efficient ways to conduct programs, Strong Minds settled on a model of consistent group therapy for a period of 12 weeks that a trained community member led. Qualifying to receive training as a group leader does not require a high level of formal education beforehand and is therefore accessible to members of communities in extreme poverty. These groups are extremely effective at reducing the cases of depressive episodes and providing coping mechanisms.

The World Federation for Mental Health

The World Federation for Mental Health emerged in 1948 and has been active in several different areas of mental health services since. The organization’s focus is destigmatizing mental illness and advocating for international and national mental health policies for the underserved. The organization helps to organize mental health awareness activities and events around the world and educate the public on mental health conditions. It also aims to improve care, treatment and recovery of people with mental disorders.

Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry

The Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry initially provided mental health services in developing countries in Europe with a special focus on nations that were previously part of the USSR. The organization’s work has now spread to include other regions too. The organization advocates for mental health care as a human right and assists people with mental health disorders, intellectual disabilities and trauma-based disorders. Like Strong Minds, the Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry focuses on improving mental health options and services on a community level by working with local negative forms of mental illness management and helping to create more positive treatment options. The organization’s decentralized approach makes solutions more sustainable in the long term.

Center for Health and Human Development

Mental Health International, under the umbrella of the organization Center for Health and Human Development, helps to provide mental healthcare in El Salvador and other developing countries like Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The organization aims to destigmatize mental illness and form a network of NGOs to provide care to people with mental health disorders like depression and schizophrenia. Mental Health International also provides self-empowerment techniques along with training and classes for mental health caregivers.

All the above organizations work to improve and provide mental health resources in developing countries and create a world in which everyone in need has access to sufficient care.

– Che Jackson
Photo: Flickr