Mental Health in Developing Nations

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Mental Health in Developing Nations

In this TED talk, Delle Sangu gives different examples of how African people have been unable to deal with or have taken the issue of mental health from what it means into the extreme sense. For example, he states that there is very little that the government has done towards the enhancement of mental health issues in most African and generally the developing nations because it is not considered an important part of society. He even gives statistics and states that less than 1% of the total health budget in developing countries goes to mental health. This means that other issues are prioritized while mental health is not prioritized.

Focusing on the third world countries and especially Kenya, which has been of great interest to me, the story of Delle Sangu is very much relatable to the situation in Kenya whereby the mental health campaign has just begun because in the former years, the concern and the issues which were presented were seen as out of the way the people believed and how the society should be constructed while in real sense individuals were suffering from no one to share their problems and issues. Therefore in a developing country like Kenya, there are developing stories about mental health whereby in schools there are teachers trained in counseling services. These teachers also train some students whom they call peer counselors, and therefore through this, there is an increased level of awareness.

Even though the traditional view that if a person gets mad, they are outcasts and that they may be possessed, there are still improvements being done, and this is very important for the mental health sector and generally the sector of health because when a person has good mental health, there is a likelihood that the person will be perfectly fine in most of the times in other health issues.

Work cited

‌Delle, Sangu. “There’s No Shame in Taking Care of Your Mental Health.” Www.ted.com, www.ted.com/talks/sangu_delle_there_s_no_shame_in_taking_care_of_your_mental_health#t-526066.

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