Cameroon’s Armed Conflict Is Asking This Ethnic Group to Pick Sides
Today, we start in conflict-affected regions of Cameroon, where the warring parties are pressuring the indigenous Fulani people to pick sides. We then travel to Tunisia to see migrant activists accusing the government of forcefully expelling and arresting migrants. Finally, we head to Uganda to meet the activist running a shelter for queer people living with HIV amid the country’s harsh anti-LGBTQ+ laws.
But first, in Zimbabwe, grandmothers are taking on a crucial role in addressing the country’s mental health crisis.
Zimbabwe is a country of 15 million people with less than 20 psychiatrists. The country has witnessed a rise in its mental health issues over the years due to its faltering economy, high inflation rate, and other socio-economic problems. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that Zimbabwe has one of the highest suicide rates in Africa. Unfortunately, people struggling with their mental health cannot get the help they need due to high psychiatrist fees.
However, in 2006, Dr. Dixon Chibanda developed a program to train lay health workers to counsel those struggling with mental health. He first had this idea in 2004 after witnessing two tragic, unrelated events: the loss of a patient from suicide and the displacement of 700,000 Zimbabweans left homeless due to a government exercise that demolished thousands of residential properties across the country.
In 2006, Chibanda started work with the Ministry of Health and Child Care and the University of Zimbabwe to train 14 lay health workers in evidence-based problem-solving therapy. The trainees were grandmothers who were at least 50 years of age, and the program improved their empathy, listening skills, and ability to properly counsel patients dealing with common mental health problems such as depression and anxiety.
This transformative initiative was coined the Friendship Bench because the counseling sessions happen on made-for-purpose benches. Starting with 14 grandmothers, the program has grown exponentially and expanded to other African countries like Rwanda, Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, and Botswana. North Africa currently uses a digital version of the Friendship Bench.
What started as an unpaid volunteer position has evolved, with counselor-grandmothers now receiving a $25 monthly allowance, along with stationery and bicycles, particularly benefiting those in rural communities.
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Cameroon’s armed conflict is asking this ethnic group to pick sides
On a chill afternoon in January 2021, a group of gun-wielding men believed to be separatist fighters besieged Orti, a village on the outskirts of Ndu, a town in the conflict-affected Northwest region of Cameroon. Aissatou, a member of the indigenous Fulani people (Mbororos), a minority and disadvantaged group in Cameroon, had prepared her husband’s favourite meal (okra and cassava paste) and was about to serve it when she heard incessant gunshots.
“We were terrified,” Aissatou, now 24, recalls. “I and my two children laid flat on the floor to escape from stray bullets. We do that whenever we hear gunshots.” Her husband had gone out to look after their cattle and had exceeded the time he would usually come home. Though worried, she was sure her husband would find his way back home amidst the gunshots as he always does.
At about 7 pm, Aissatou received the news of her husband’s whereabouts: he was drowning in his pool of blood at the village square. The separatist militia had shot him.
From individual networks to more organized clinics, here is how sexual and gender minorities in Nigeria receive healthcare.
In 2017, Kolade*, a bisexual man living in Lagos, experienced discrimination in Nigeria’s healthcare system when he needed a doctor’s consultation for what he perceived to be an anal tear. At first, Kolade sought help from a friend, who was a medical student, but the friend started to ask invasive questions about Kolade’s sexuality.
“I was not comfortable answering his questions because he was straight, so I lied and told him I had very bad constipation instead,” Kolade explains. Through a WhatsApp group, he was able to find a seemingly open-minded doctor who worked in a state government hospital to whom he spoke freely about his situation.
However, the doctor quickly told Kolade that his condition was not normal and insisted he paid more money for the consultation.
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What will the world do on LGBTQ+ rights in 2024?
There were huge milestones and setbacks for LGBTQ+ rights around the world during 2023.
Same-sex marriage was legalised in nations including Slovenia and Andorra, gay sex was decriminalised in Mauritius and the Cook Islands and self-identification laws for transgender people were passed in Spain, Finland and New Zealand. However, trans rights lost ground in Russia and parts of the United States, while Uganda passed one of the world’s strictest anti-gay laws, imposing the death sentence for certain same-sex acts.
Here is what to watch out for in 2024.
- Thailand appears to be on track to legalise same-sex marriage this year after lawmakers overwhelmingly passed draft legislation in December.
- Same-sex marriages officially became legal in Estonia from Jan. 1.
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Meet the activist running a shelter in Uganda for people living with HIV
Uganda sparked global outrage last year with the introduction of its Anti-Homosexuality Act, which has forced the country’s LGBTQIA+ community to adjust to a new – and much darker – normal.
The legislation has been recognised as one of the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQIA+ laws and imposes the death penalty for so-called “aggravated” cases of homosexuality, including the transmission of HIV. Uganda has been making steady progress against the virus, with UNAIDS reporting a 39 per cent drop in new infections from 2010 to 2021, but there are now fears that the gains made could be lost because of the Anti-Homosexuality Act.
Muwonge Gerald, the founder of Foaster Foundation for Health Care Uganda, a non-profit organisation working with the LGBTQIA+ community and people living with HIV, has already seen this happening at a grassroots level through the work he does at his community shelter.
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‘Nobody sees me’: Photographing displacement in Burkina Faso’s capital
More than 30,000 Burkinabé have made their way down to the capital city, Ouagadougou, over the past few years, escaping a jihadist conflict that has enveloped large parts of the country and displaced more than two million people overall.
Yet despite the city’s safety and employment opportunities, the displaced people have been struggling with high rents and a lack of assistance and recognition from humanitarian organisations and different governments.
“I came here hoping to find help for my kids, but nobody sees me,” said Ramata Amadou, who is 34 and originally from Gorom-Gorom in northern Burkina Faso. “Since I have been here, nobody from the government has ever come to help.”
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Otamere Guobadia explores queer catharsis in his provocative debut poetry collection
Unutterable Visions, Perishable Breath is a bold exploration of love, desire and destiny. Here, the writer unpacks the personal and creative inspirations behind his debut.
“These words are my salves. Bandages on damnation,” Guobadia proclaims in the introductory pages of Unutterable Visions, Perishable Breath. In his debut poetry collection, Guobadia’s lyrical sequences and fragmented queer poetry reflect on themes of yearning, destiny and personal history.
A multi-hyphenate writer, Guobadia’s journalistic work has appeared in British Vogue, The Guardian, GQ and much more. In recent years, he has written passionately on topics of queerness, love and creativity. Unutterable Visions, Perishable Breath marks a change of direction in his creative form.