A case for digital mental health services in Uganda

By 

Jacob Waiswa Buganga,

Wellness and Recreation Facility

Kampala, Uganda

Development and growth of cities, countries, and regions have caused excitement, but also misery, arising from income inequality, limited benefit from development programs, limited means of livelihood, limited access to relief support, family breakdown, depression, substance abuse, crime and violence, and limited access to mental health services by the majority of the population, both the urban and rural poor in Uganda. 

As a consequence, they suffer from preventable non-communicable diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, liver failure, kidney failure due to obsessive, stressful, and risky behaviour, include overuse of addictive substances to cope with extreme stress. This further compromises family and social progress and harmony, yet without adequate means to redeem the situation. 

The limited and available mental health services offer psychological first aid, without midterm and long-term care and management. Covid19 has disrupted livelihoods and more than doubled mental health challenges, leading to sudden deaths. 

The devastating impact of Covid19, compromised delivery of mental health services by the limited service providers in place, despite the need to survive more than 41 million people and counter pathological information that is detrimental to mental wellbeing.

Under these circumstances, emergency responses are needed to boost to mental health  in most challenging times, through alternative care arrangements such as digital mental healthcare services. 

The limited facilities and distant areas require looping system and approach, involving digital technology, to salvage the situation.  This will allow access to digital mental health in any part of the country and support midterm and long-term mental health care and management.

Integrated Research Capacity-Building Program 2018-2020

Introduction

Research is a way of life and strong basis for success in life. The programme aims at imparting passion and a lifestyle of researchers in participants for them to find it easy to meet their life goals. It brings together ambition, developments by insight, existing internal and external materials, challenges and draws conclusions as bases of decision making and behaviour needed along the respective paths to individuals' goals. The workshop will equip participants with appropriate methods and designs to arrive at specific and non-specific results about a given phenomena under question.

Field activity during Inclusive Business Research, 2017

Learning objectives:

• Reduce ignorance on momentary basis
• Amass knowledge and wisdom
• Overcome challenges 
• Increase productivity 
• Achieve ambitions and goals
• Reduce conflicts 
• Manage resources and personal self better.

Target:

• Postgraduate students 
• Teachers, trainers and instructors
• Managers
• Entrepreneurs  
• Leaders

Date: 27/10/17 - 30/10/17

Venue:
Plot 15, Narambhai Road Jinja
Programme fee: $50
Accommodation: $20

Contact us to request registration form:
Phone: +256774336277/+256752542504
Email: dishma.imhs@gmail.com/waiswajacobo@yahoo.co.uk

Call for partnership and collaboration

Dear Venerable, Professor, Dr./Mr./Ms./Sir./Madamme;

We hope this email finds you well, as we write to call on you to partner with us in our grassroots development endeavors.

You were identified in the course of finding potential partners, using both our established networks and further learning about you in our development research and activities.

We thought you could join us in our efforts towards strengthening capacity and rebuilding lives in Africa and wanting places elsewhere in the world.

At Integrated MentaI Health Initiative (IMI), we amass effort and actions designed to address specific mental health challenges at different levels of human functioning, so as to reduce vulnerability, accelerate healing for the mentally-challenged and support sustainable mental wellbeing. Our work currently in Uganda, but with various modes of reaching beneficiaries in the countryside, region and across the world, which we believe can have a great impact in future.

We are pleased to have learned about various wellness traditions, oriented, inducted and had them integrated in our operations. These mainly include: eastern, western and African traditions. We are happy to share that, we experienced intriguing results on not only human mental well-functioning as a person, but also mental wellness in a person’s functioning within the natural and manmade environments. These, we were incorporated in our work to suit the different needs of people that we meet; local or foreign. It was a revitalizing listening to messages of peace from distinguished leaders in associated with the mental health sector from around the world. And through that, we hope we can achieve a world where everyone is well, happy and peaceful.

Through our approach and design of interventions, we have brought hope, built faith, and supported our beneficiaries to realize and discover themselves, and adjust to different changes as they happen in their lives. This experience, in turn, makes us happy, and is what keeps us going, even in far many resource-limiting conditions we work in.

To achieve that, we explore and use well our unique experiences on top of what we learn from our work and existing experiences. But also look for partners, colleagues and friends who make themselves available to support in whatever way possible or offer equipment and leadership support, when they find such needs.

Currently, we partner with School of Psychology,Makerere University; individual practitioners from Department of Psychiatry, Makerere University and Butabika Mental Teaching Hospital; individual practitioners; Union of Community Development Volunteers (UCDV); Ecological Christian Organisation(ECO); Medicare Professional Clinical Officer’s College; Ministry of Gender and Welfare; and District Local Government Offices. And we are always open to receive new partners, friends, peers, parents, brothers and sisters in our cause. You can like us by clicking ‘like’:www.facebook.com/integratedmentalhealthinitiative and find more information on the website:www.integratedmhi.org.

As such, we have been wondering how best to continue contributing to mental wellness and peace as basis on general human and ecological wellbeing at local level as much as international stage in different ways; to share experiences, expertise, collaborate in research undertakings and input with and/or from international scholars and practitioners to improve my work in Africa. And on how you can contribute those endeavors.

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We are wondering too how to become part of your development part, as to other organizations and benefit as such, especially, for the purposes of deepening expertise and professionalism on integrated mental health (extended mental health) and its application, supporting research and publications, community and leadership engagements, and online—based outreaches (website development and maintenance), building toilets for poor families, supporting the disabled and elderly people with clean water and medicine, proper housing, supporting skills development among children and youths for sustainable peace, support poor families with clothes, basic education, reading materials, relief supplies, and support to continue participating in forth coming workshops and future activities with practitioners and development partners around the world.

Our clients can further gain from the books distribution, vocation tools, equipment for practice, publishing and promotion of activities, and volunteer (as teachers, facilitators, and mentors - who can been encouraged to regularly come here to perform with communities we service activities that reduce vulnerability, bring hope and healing, and inspires them to aspire securely into an Africa and life they want to see and live in.

We believe and are confident that our partnership, collaboration, active participation and working with you will help build strong solidarity with you so we can help make the world a better place to see, feel better about and to live in, and achieve development and peace –as suggested by the sustainability millennium development goals (SDGs).  Equally, very useful, you can recommend us or talk to someone about us, since there are always individuals, groups, families, companies, organizations, embassies and nations that time and again are so eager to support others and share their love, compassion and happiness.

In case of any questions, comment or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us using the address above.

We look forward to working with you.

With Metta/In Service;

Jacob Waiswa Buganga (BCPsy.,MAPCs. &  Cert.  Homebased Care)

Founder, IMI.‎

Global Terrorism: Victims of the 7/11 and Psychological Trauma Interventions, Uganda's Quest for Solutions

By

Jacob Waiswa

Psychological trauma is occurring in areas of the world marred by violence -radiating from families, communities, and the different regions of the world –where victims develop considerable degrees of disability mentally, physically, emotionally, socially, occupationally, and spiritually.

Terrorism is one approach of violence that has perplexed the world today. The application of lethal violence usually requires reference to vital threats; broad and complex grievances; spiritual, moral, and ethical authority; and symbolic, identity, or other irreducible goals (Walter, R. 1990).

Terrorism is fatal and agonising strategy of violence against a perceived enemy. It is pursued by different people for different reasons, yet well justified by them –respectively. While terrorism constitutes mental and behavioural tendencies of one party towards another, it is hardly perceived so by that party. 

Research Business Development in Uganda

Jacob Waiswa
Peace and Conflict Center
P.O. Box 7062,
Makerere University
Kampala-Uganda
jwaiswa@arts.mak.ac.ug

Research is most demanding activity everyone can ever face. It calls for both intellectual and physical energies. It calls for an effective plan and subsequently getting committed to it to its very successful end. Time, commitment and patience are other special considerations.

Before its start, a schedule is set specifying time of engagement with research while along the way researcher ensures total commitment to get through it as planned.

And of course, so many attractions show up during the course of the research study or otherwise get frustrated and disappointed along. Being patient and sustaining it becomes the answer as researcher looks more to its end than really enjoy doing it.

Whatever the intentions of the research, it is never just about the data collector. The community among which researcher works is put into perspective by, for example, anticipating appropriate time to meet them, presentation of clear information, being respectful showed not only in speech but the dressing option, and the burden of responding to so many tiring and heavily time consuming questions. Along the way they tire and demand not to continue.

It becomes an abuse and ill-treatment to take them on further than the time they are willing to give. The other aspect that researchers often elude is the question of benefit of the study to the interviewees. Such is often either deliberately omitted during the induction of the prospecting interviewees or not clearly mentioned whilst carrying out interviews.

At more advanced stages is the question of paying for interviewee’s irreplaceable time. That has been criticized much because of the ‘negative’ influence it can have on the nature of responses made.

Research is a business to many firms that yields high incomes and helps to offer part-time employment to new graduates. Those employed to carry out data collection task are equally pressed hard to accept low wages to minimize firm’s cost of operation. Besides they equally breakdown owing to the huge target of work demanded by their employers.

The wages can be so low that they cannot sustain efforts of interviewers throughout the project time or just fairly ok to sustain such efforts but with no savings for them to make, or just good enough to motivate interviewer met every requirement of the study. Fortunately or unfortunately, the implication of the wages verses the cost of living will definitely affect the outcome of the results.

A hindrance, very common in Africa is weather, but rarely put into perspective during the planning phases of research. When heavy rains start, interviewers are not well protected from the heavy rains, while during warm temperatures they are not well facilitated to deal with dehydration.

So, because of such conditions, interviewers tire easily, resort to short-cut and unauthorised ways to generate research information, or postpone the day’s task to some other enabling day to gather information.

Often denied fact is failure to acknowledge that the selected tools of data collection are best understood by its designer rather than the one hired to make use of it. The second-placed user may completely get confused by it or make mistakes. To the very worst, pretesting is characterized by defense of errors detected rather than make corrections to avoid unnecessary ambiguities and questions that do not make sense to the interviewees.

Since disagreements over usage of verbs and interpretation of questions consume a lot of time, a stage is reached when all parties will agree to disagree or compromise to have a question error stand.

The work-load set by research firms seeks to minimize the cost of operation. In most cases such targets are unrealistic dreams –convincingly made real for the hired person to become a donkey to reach them. The huge work-load becomes a critical source of stress –leading to constant aches, fatigue, burn out, and loss of interest just mid-way to the end of the task.

Those prompt interviewers to quit, to adjust the procedure of research, and to go against the instructions as coping means. More investment in the area of research and better remuneration owing to the huge benefits research comes with like efficiency and effective of programming and of public goods and services delivery makes it meaningful.