South Sudan’s mental health clinics face funding crisis
This clinic in Mundry County in South Sudan’s equatorial state has been a source of help for people seeking mental health services. Many of them are victims of war and displacement after the loss of her husband Vobia Kawwana who is also a mother of five developed mental health issues. Before I went and started to attend the sessions, I was really having a lot of thinking, a lot of stress. I wanted to run away to abandon these children, I even thought of ending my life. But since I attended the training, it has changed me. It helped. Now I’m staying with other people. I can get ideas from other people. That’s why you found me at home. I’m still alive and I find the strength to do some farming. South Sudan has the fourth highest suicide rate in Africa according to UN data and internally displaced people are disproportionately affected. The International Organization for Migration says it’s fueled by confinement and pressures related to poverty, idleness, armed conflict and gender based violence. In my community here, there’s a lot of issues that sometimes that make community sometimes to have to make suicide for themsel. Okay. Causes of uh this one is stress. So the moment I heard about uh the program, I actually volunteer myself in order to save my community from all the trauma trauma or issues that there are. Since it was established in 2022, this clinic along with eight others have served more than 20,000 people bringing them mental health services for the first time. The clinic is funded by Italian and Greek philanthropists who have issued notice on termination of funding soon. The issue is causing anxiety among volunteers and citizens due to the nature of the mental ill diseases. It’s a kind of a disease that run pronicity. So people will get a recovery and they will be fine. But if we didn’t maintain and sustain that service they receiving, we’re going to ending up having them relapsing again. South Sudan has experienced armed conflict and political instability since 2011 when the country seceded from Sudan. During its civil war, hundreds of thousands of people died and millions were displaced. Mental health clinics like these ones are deemed necessary as many citizens experience psychological trauma. They only hope that operations here can keep going. One jam guy, CGTN.
In South Sudan’s Equatoria state, specialized mental health clinics, vital for trauma survivors of ongoing conflict, are at risk as donor funding dries up. With government mental health services nearly nonexistent, these clinics are a lifeline, but their future hangs in the balance.
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