WHAT IS YOUR SOLUTION?

Background
A University in Northern Ghana called The University for Development
Studies (UDS) was established with an aim to blend the academic world
with that of the community in order to provide constructive interaction
between the two for the total development of northern Ghana. The
University by its mandate has a pro-poor community focus and this is
reflected in its methodology of teaching, research and outreach
services.
The school combines academic work and rural community-based field
practical works which require students to spend two months annually
in selected rural communities in any of the Northern regions to
undertake community diagnosis and to collaborate with the community
and other sectors in the promotion of development.
Our Solution
Our solution to curb the menace of victimization of mental health
patients especially women is the establishment of the Loud It
Foundation.
Loud It Foundation seek to do this by educating the people in these
rural areas to create awareness on the reality and existence of mental
illness to influence healthy decision making in these communities when
women show symptom of not being mentally stable instead of
confining them to Witch Camps.
Our foundation will implement this by partnering the University for
Development Studies to leverage on it’s existing Rural Community
Based Field Practical outreaches in these rural communities by
equipping these students to serve as Mental Health advocates
alongside their academic project while in these communities.
Our role as a foundation would entail the facilitation of a virtual
training programs for these students. Also, there is little or no
education in these communities hence members speak only their native
languages such as Hausa which would impede effective interaction
between students and community members. We aim to overcome this
via the use of AI audio-to-audio translators during the project.
As part of our solution, the foundation intends to have skills training for
these women confined to the camps to enhance their usefulness in
society. This, we believe would go a long way to help improve the
symptoms of some of these patients as some depressive symptoms are
due to hardships in living conditions.
DESCRIBE THE CORE TECHNOLOGY THAT POWERS YOUR SOLUTION
Ghana has about 50 indigenous languages with English as the official
language spoken among the literate population in the country.
The northern part of Ghana has the lowest literacy rate in the country
with a literacy rate of approximately 39%. This figure is even less in the
rural communities in this part of Ghana. Our foundation’s plan on
educating people in these rural communities would be impeded
without a means to communicate effectively with these people
regardless of the illiteracy rate.
Our foundation will employ the use of AI Audio-to-Audio translator
apps which our Mental Health Advocates would have installed on their
smart phone to aid effective communication while on the field.
Our foundation also seeks to involve the involve the Ghana Psychiatrist
Association in development of a training manual and training of the
students. Unfortunately, as of 2022, Ghana has only 61 psychiatrists of
which most are based in the Southern aspect of the country. Our
foundation intends to use Virtual Meeting Apps such as Zoom and
Google Meet to facilitate the training session between the Students
and the Psychiatrists.
Also, the foundation intends on developing a smart phone app version
of the Awareness Guide that will be created by the Trainers for the
Field Advocates for easy accessibility while on the field.
WHAT MAKES YOUR SOLUTION INNOVATIVE?
Attempts to address the issue of Mental Health in Ghana and the Issue
of Victimization of Women in Northern Ghana has seen numerous
approaches such as Criminalization of the act, forced closure of some of
these witch camps, and the use of Mass Media such as TV and radio to
educate Ghanaians.
None of these attempts has been effective as the act has still persisted
over decades. For instance, the use of Mass Media in attempt to create
awareness hasn’t been effective as the rural communities where these
acts of victimization are practiced don’t even have access to electricity
hence the use of Television and Radio is not commonplace.
Also, most of these approaches have failed to tackle to the root cause
which is the lack of awareness in these rural areas. Some criteria for
branding a woman a ‘Witch’ in these areas is Severe Antisocial
behavior, and symptoms of Hallucinations and Delusions. Women who
display these symptoms are immediately branded ‘Witches’ because of
the lack of understanding by these communities that these are
symptoms of possible mental illness.
Loud It foundation’s approach in using Face to Face Health Education as
the method to tackle this menace is the first of its kind. It addresses the
downsides of previous approaches made by the government and other
institutions. This method used in other settings has proven to resolve
problems that prevent people from making healthy choices and it will
effectively create the necessary awareness in these communities.
Also, our strategy to partner the University for development Studies
also leverages on an already existing successful outreach program
hence increases the chances of our foundation’s project to be
sustainable in the long term.