According to the World Health Organization, every 40 seconds, someone in the world dies by suicide. 77% of these deaths are from low and middle income countries, like Nigeria. We want to change this statistics by training Lay counsellors across Africa, who will provide life-saving mental health interventions, especially within grassroots communities.
Lay Counselling Skills Training
On 4th to 8th February, 2022, we had our first Lay counselling skills training for the year. 8 participants from 4 different countries (Nigeria, India, Zimbabwe and Uganda) received a scholarship to participate in the 5 days- virtual training. Participants were chosen through a thorough application process from 30 applicants. Participants are social development workers improving the lives of young women, girls, persons with disabilities and other underserved persons. The training curriculum covered basic counselling skills (active listening, questioning and observation skills), ethics and confidentiality in counselling, screening for signs of depression, anxiety, stress and suicide, basics of setting up a support group, understanding referral pathways and self-care routine for counsellors. We are excited to continue to support our trained lay counsellors with mentorship as they provide psychosocial support within their communities.
NILEVAWG training
We were selected to participate in a 6-month programme by the National Institute for Leadership and Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (NILEVAWG) which commenced on the 7th of April, 2022.The programme begins with a 3-days workshop on understanding VAWG, causes, impact, rights-based approach to ending VAWG, frameworks on ending VAWG, stakeholders, etc. This will be followed by designing a workplan to implement in the next 6 months. Our Founder and Project lead represents the organization in this programme, with a step-down to other team members.
In the middle picture, Aisha Bubah, can be seen making a group presentation on the impact of VAWG on health (physical, psychological, socio-economic wellbeing) and the society. Idimma remains committed to provide access to psychosocial support to victims and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence by training community lay counsellors and providing counselling and referrals through the the national emergency number 112 mental health helpline run by our sister organization The Sunshine Series.
This programme is organized by the Nigerian Women Trust Fund and Ford Foundation.
