Child Violence and Exploitation Archives - Page 17 of 22

In Africa, there is so much focus on the physical needs of kids – education, health, HIV/AIDSand yes, this is important. But who is addressing the psychological needs of children? What is going to happen in Africa when we have millions of children going through grief and loss?

People are becoming more aware of the need but it`s not as tangible as building a school or addressing physical health needs. Very few people are talking about working to ensure these kids are adjusted for life.

I`ve seen so many traumatised children, very many. One of my biggest involvements was the Rwanda genocide. We were the first professional team into Rwanda [with my organisation, Oasis]. There we did a lot of work training trauma workers in communities. We also ran a trauma children`s program and were trying to link them with help as much as we could.

I`ve been working in child psychology for 23 years. I used to be a science teacher but I had so many children coming to me each day with problems at home or at school; parents who are divorcing and remarrying, changing sets of relatives, alcohol and drug abuse. Eventually I realised I needed to help these children.

The two main issues affecting the mental health of children in Africa are neglect and abuse. Neglect, which not only means their physical needs are not being met, but their emotional, psychological and spiritual needs. A child that misses out on critical relationships, emotional care, spirituality – this is an abused child.

There is also community violence, particularly in some of the war-torn nations in Africa. These children lack holistic safety and support from adults. So they feel the world is a bad place to be in. They grow up saying “I`m bad”.

Mental health matters for children because if a child does not have holistic mental health care when they`re younger, they can face a very difficult road ahead. I`ve worked with some extremely damaged adults, totally destroyed from childhood €“ both in Africa and in America where I did my PhD and when you roll backwards, you find a very unstable childhood.

In Africa, the need is so big, I think of the millions of kids not getting help. One of the reasons ChildFund Kenya got me on board is that we have a big vacuum in terms of psychosocial services for children. Many programs include the word ˜psychosocial` but when it comes to action on the ground, it`s not happening.

We want children`s mental health programs in Africa to be taken seriously. The question is funding. It`s very difficult to get funding to resource programs for mental health. I`ve worked for many years with negligible resources.

One of the problems is that psychology has not been recognised as a profession in Kenya until very recently. We have been lobbying the Government to pass a bill that would create an accredited Board of Psychologists who can issue licences to operate as a registered practitioner. I am pleased to say our President signed our Bill of Psychology into an Act of Parliament on 31 July. So, we are on the way to licensure.

Many people feel that mental health for Africa is last on their list of priorities. When I was in the US, someone asked me, “Do Africans needs counsellors? Do they need psychologists?” I asked him, “Do Africans cry? Yes, they have tears, so they also need psychology and counselling.”

A woman even told me at a conference, “Why don`t you go home, teach mothers how to feed their babies and make baskets?”

What I`m saying is that we should protect the children so they don`t end up like the adults I`ve seen who are totally destroyed. It`s bad for everyone, not only that person, but their families, their communities.

We can prevent a lot of problems before they happen by training parents and community members to provide care at whatever level is needed. Everyone needs skills in helping others, even just listening. If you ask a child, “What`s up?”, you get many answers €“ if you listen.

Dr Gladys Mwiti is one of the only clinical psychologists in Kenya, and the CEO and founder of Oasis Africa Center for Transformational Psychology & Trauma, a Nairobi-based NGO providing professional counselling, training and community services. She recently joined the Advisory Board of ChildFund Kenya after working with ChildFund as a child counselling consultant during the Horn of Africa food crisis in 2011.

12 August marks International Youth Day, the theme of which this year is Youth and Mental Health. Join the conversation online using #IYD2014 and #MentalHealthMatters

Mother-of-five Yuliana, lives in far eastern Indonesia in a simple house made of wood.

Like many others in her community, Yuliana’s family has a wooden rumah bulat or ’round house’ that serves as a kitchen and a storage place for harvested crops. The outbuilding has a door but no windows, and the walls and ceiling are black from smoke.

Aside from these uses, the rumah bulat is also a birthing room. According to local tradition, mothers and their newborns need to be ‘baked’ to become strong and healthy. Mother and child lie on a wooden platform with a fire burning underneath it – often for a month or more.

Yuliana did this for all five of her children, but now she discourages other mothers from doing the same. “It was so hot, I felt like I was dying, but we didn’t dare say no to our village elders,” Yuliana recalls. “It was such a miserable time. My children fell ill easily when they were younger, coughing all the time. As I now know the harmful impacts, I want people here to stop doing this.”

Today, Yuliana is a volunteer with a health project in her community. ChildFund and UNICEF work in partnership with community-based organisations, training health volunteers to raise awareness about proper health care for expectant mothers and young children.

The rumah bulat practice contributes to a significant number of young children suffering from chronic respiratory diseases and malnutrition. “It is not easy to change people`s views, since traditional norms are held in high esteem in my community,” Yuliana says.

“From the training, I understand it is not just a bad experience, but more importantly how badly it impacts the health of the mother and their baby. I want people here to understand this too.”

Yuliana is helping the local midwife to facilitate counselling sessions at their community health post. She carries a first-aid kit and keeps information about basic health care with her at all times.

“I am very happy to have Yuliana as a health volunteer,” says Adel, a community member. “She visits pregnant mothers regularly and discourages the rumah bulat practice. It’s difficult to break old habits, though.”

Adel was afraid to go against the rumah bulat tradition with her niece – a new mother – but they performed the ritual in a healthier way.

“I still underwent this practice for my niece when she gave birth,” Adel says. “I know it is wrong, but I was terrified of going against the village elders here. Yuliana has been telling us we shouldn’t keep doing this, but we’ve been told we will be cursed and that if we don’t follow the practices we will go crazy.”

However, her niece was confined to a rumah bulat with a bamboo wall that allowed more ventilation than the customary solid wood wall, and Yuliana was given the opportunity to check on both mother and baby.

Indonesia’s government supports the abolition of this practice, having introduced a new fine of US$30 if a woman gives birth at home instead of at a health centre – a hefty fine in Yuliana’s province, where the average income is US$17 a month. The government’s regulations and the sharing of health information among mothers are helping to reduce this harmful custom.

“I was really scared of the rumah bulat practice. I chose to stay at my uncle’s house in town so that I could give birth at the health centre,” says Dorsila, who, inspired by Yuliana, has also become a community health volunteer.

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