Abidjan, Douala, Lomé, and Paris, 31 October 2022 -/African Media Agency (AMA)/- according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), every day, nearly 20 teenagers commit suicide on the African continent. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds1 , knowing that nearly 37 million teenagers (aged 10-19) live with a mental disorder in Africa2. An alarming situation when we know that by 2050, 40% of young people in the world will live in Africa3.
In this context, the Bluemind Foundation publishes the first mental health index of adolescents and young adults in french speaking Africa. Based on a field survey of 929 teenagers and young adults in Cameroon (Douala, Yaoundé, Dschang, Bafoussam, Garoua, Maroua), Côte d’Ivoire (Abidjan) and Togo (Lomé), the Index teaches us that:
- Only 31% of the young people surveyed have heard of mental health diagnoses such as depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder.
- 84% of young Africans are mentally affected by the advent of the Covid-19 health crisis, and depression affects all young people, regardless of their gender identity.
- 23% of the population surveyed say they are affected in their well-being by climate change.
- 14.2% of teenagers and young African adults said they wanted to end their life in the month preceding the survey. And it is the category of young people aged 18-25 with a significantly higher risk of report- ing having attempted suicide.
- The mental health index for adolescents and young people in French-speaking Africa is 0.4 on a scale of 0 to 1. This value is an alarming reflection of the low state of youth mental health in Africa, resulting mainly from the socio-economic and psychological ills suffered by African youth and poor awareness of de-stigmatization, not to mention the near-unavailability of access to mental health care.
“The prevalence of mental health disorders among our generation portends two things: a difficulty for society to properly address the subject of mental health with its most vulnerable population (young people) and an urgent call for doing better. But, to do better, you have to know what problem to address, how to address it, and what the end beneficiaries expect. It is precisely an answer to these questions that this index provides”, said Martin Lingom, Program Manager of the Bluemind Foundation’s Teen Youth Tank.
“The findings of this Index confirm that it is urgent to mobilize for the mental health of young people in Africa, proposing today sustainable solutions for the adults of tomorrow. An invitation to implementing a global multisectoral strategy so that this alarming situation does not remain ignored and neglected. At the same time, Africa has hope, a hope that rests on its youth, a youth unfortunately sick. It is a citizenship issue that engages the responsibility of all of us. Will we collectively be up to the challenge?” concludes Marie-Alix de Putter, Founding President of the Bluemind Foundation.
To download the mental health index of adolescents and young adults in french speaking Africa and discover all the results: it’s here
1 https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide, accessed October 10, 2022
2Henrietta Fore, In my head to promote, protect and support children’s mental health, Unicef, 05 October 2021 https://www.unicef.fr/article/dans-ma-tete-promouvoir-proteger-et-prendre-en-charge-la-sante-mentale-des- enfants/Accessed on October 08, 2022
3 Generation 2030 Africa 2.0 Promoting investments in children to benefit from the demographic dividend, Unicef, October 2017
Distributed by African Media Agency on behalf of Bluemind Foundation.
About Bluemind Foundation
Bluemind Foundation (www.bluemindfoundation.org) is an international non-governmental organization chaired by Marie- Alix de Putter, who founded it in July 2021 following the assassination of her husband and her personal experience of post- traumatic stress, depression and mental illness and chronic anxiety. Our constant message is based on a strong conviction: mental health is health. With the ambition to make mental health a social, cultural and political issue, the Bluemind Foundation’s mission is to de-stigmatize mental health and make care accessible to all. follow us on Twitter, Facebook, instagram and LinkedIn.
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