‘We all need someone’: the hairdressers tackling stigma of mental health issues in west Africa | Africa

YOpougon, the largest of the 13 municipalities in Abidjan, with a population of 1.5 million, is known for its entrepreneurial grain, its sparkling nightlife and, in pop culture, as the birthplace of the most popular comic character of Francophone, Aya de Yopougon.

Under agitation, he also houses another taboo pioneer: Adjoua Catherine Tano, 49, a hairdresser who spent two decades to offer mental health advice, or simply listening to her customers.

A school dropout that tried as a bank cashier before becoming a hairdresser, Tano’s resilience has recently been useful when he talks to a teenager worried about their exams. “I said to him,” Don’t think negatively “,” said Tano. “” Even if you fail, how can you think you failed in life? “”

Mental health remains a taboo subject in most regions of Africa, even if, according to the World Health Organization, more than 116 million people have mental health problems on the continent. Therapy is in a critical ruin, with 1.4 mental health agents per 100,000 people.

In black communities, hairdressers have become a safe space, especially in communities with little or no access to mental health care – or quality health care in general.

The Bluemind Foundation, a non-profit organization working through Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire and Togo, connected the hairdresser-client relationship through its Heal by Hair initiative. According to its founder, Marie-Alix de Putter, more than 400 hairdressers, including Tano, have been trained in the past two years to act as the first therapeutic stakeholders or “Mental Health Ambassadors”, reaching more than 100,000 women. By 2030, Putter hopes to reach more than 1,000 hairdressers in 20 countries.

“Confidence is already there”

It started with a love story that has become tragic. In 2012, when the putteurs of DE travels to Natal Cameroon, her husband was murdered. She became a widow when she was four months pregnant. The case remains unresolved.

“I spent my first night as a widow with my hairdresser,” she said. “She was the one who trusts the most that night because you’re just surrounded by people and you don’t know who could have done that … so we had this relationship where every week she came to style me [initially] at home and listen.

Inspired by its personal history, the Foundation conducted a study in 2021 in seven French -speaking countries: 77% of stakeholders admitted to their hairdressers, and more than 90% of hairdressers said that their customers had searched for their advice.

“We have just connected the confidence that women already give to their hairdressers with the tools,” she said. The first training took place in April 2022.

The program is structured around free and intensive training of three days with psychiatrists and mental health experts who teach women active listening, sexist violence and signs of depression – as well as the theories of psychology. Then they are assessed before receiving a certificate.

“The training went very well … I got my diploma and that,” said another hairdresser, Thérèse Gueu, while she was reaching a psychology manual on a shelf in her living room in the working class district of Abobo.

More than six months, trainees are supported through peer groups and access to a psychological reference system. When a customer shares deeper problems, hairdressers refer their customers to professional psychologists or in the event of domestic violence to the police. Many are still bristling at the idea of ​​one or the other, citing the financial and societal costs to do so in a conservative region where one in three people lives in extreme poverty.

Initially, the financing of the program mainly came from the Savings of Putter, but from donors and private agencies such as France of France Innovation Fund are now presented. Nevertheless, the resources remain low for the quantity of work against the small team of the foundation of 17 paid employees and around 100 volunteers.

Their work gave stories of joy and healing: in Togo, an intern hired someone who had been in a psychiatric hospital, offering social rehabilitation.

“Often, when you have been sick and have been hospitalized, people say you’re crazy,” said putter. “So, if you have a job and someone who agrees to train you, you get out of the taboo.”

A hairdresser left her house because she was the victim of violence, but now helps people. In some communities, hairdressers say that a few men also started looking for advice.

Among the hairdressers, there is a general feeling of accomplishment on their emergence as a form of emotional support in their communities. “”[When] People come to explain their problems to me, it is also a pride for me because I know that I am an ear for someone, “said Gueu.” I tell myself that we all need someone. “”

“For many of these women, it is their first recognition as a leader in their community and a protector,” said Putter. “These women say to us:” Before my hair, now I heal. »»