Dear *HIFA Colleagues*,
Hello from a chilly Yaoundé in Cameroon.
The news of the membership of the Association des sages-femmes assimilé du Cameroon (asefac) was the headline of echosante.info today, 5th of May.
(https://echosante.info/organisation-lasfac-reco).
This exciting news comes in when Cameroon celebrated on the 4th of May the World Maternal Mental Health day by a massive online advocacy and awareness raising campaign to inform women, girls, health and mental health professionals, and government officials about the day and maternal mental health. This was organized by HIFA country representative, Didier Demassosso in collaboration with Post Partum Support International (PSI), Mental Health Innovation Network Africa (MHIN Africa) and Deserve intl, a youth led organisations involved in youth, maternal, child and adolescent health and wellbeing.
Approximately 500,000 people were reached through a cumulative effect of a talk over Cameroon Feeling a programme over national TV Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV), social media (WhatsApp, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook). More activities during this mental health awareness month in communities and hospitals are under preparation.
Women and mothers need midwives and midwives need to be equipped to meet up with the growing mental health care needs of Cameroonian mothers.
Evidence of maternal mental health care is building in Cameroon. For example Cameroonian study done by a local mental health organisation called UNIS-PSY et Bien-être on 1300 new teen mothers revealed that 70% of them had depression and an unpublished study still by the same organisation reveals a 50% presence of significant psychological problems in older mothers. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34575274/)
There is therefore urgent need not only to increase more access to reliable maternal mental health information in communities around Cameroon but also to equip midwives to provide reliable maternal mental health care services to mothers. The unmet needs are huge.
Warm regards,
Didier Demassosso
HIFA Country Representative For Cameroon
HIFA profile: Didier Demassosso is a mental health practitioner, Consultant (WHO , MoPH Cameroon...), Mental health advocate , Youth advocate with 10 years experience in mental health development in Cameroon. He is also a health communicator and educationist. HIFA Country Representative For Cameroon/ HIFA Country Representative of the year 2014 / Regional Coordinator for Africa. He also currently volunteers for the Mental Health Innovation Network Africa as Knowledge Exchange Assistant. http://www.hifa.org/people/country-representatives/map
http://www.hifa.org/support/members/didier
Email: didier.demassosso AT gmail.com
