Burkina Faso - Cascades/Care for mental illness: OCADES Banfora strengthens the skills of traditional practitioners
Banfora is hosting a mental health training workshop for traditional practitioners from the Cascades region from March 18 to 20, 2025. The opening ceremony, chaired by the Director of Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases (DPCM) at the Ministry of Health, Dr Olivia Marie Angèle Awa Ouédraogo, took place this Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in Banfora.
Since 2015, Burkina Faso has been experiencing a persistent and growing security and humanitarian crisis, with violence of all kinds, forced displacement of populations, dislocation of families, depravation of rites and customs and impoverishment of the social fabric. This situation is causing psychological trauma. According to the 2021 situational assessment of mental health in Burkina Faso, 33.49% of people surveyed had at least one symptom of mental disorder. Of all those surveyed suffering from mental disorders, 82.02% used traditional medicine. Hence the importance of this workshop for traditional practitioners in the Cascades region. Initiated by OCADES, this workshop, part of the "Mental Health for All III" project in the Cascades region of Burkina Faso, aims to guide practitioners of traditional and alternative medicine (PMTA) in the prevention of mental illness, the promotion of mental health and psychosocial support.
Speaking on behalf of the Executive Secretary of OCADES Banfora, Song-manégré Simon Ouédraogo recalls that this project promotes mental health. As he sees it, most people with mental health problems turn to traditional healers in search of a solution to their problems. This means, he continues, that traditional and modern medicine must work together for the well-being of the population. "We thought that by discussing together and sharing experiences, we would be able to work in synergy to promote mental health in the Cascades and, by extension, in Burkina Faso", he emphasized.
The representative of the Executive Secretary of OCADES Banfora points out that, at the Cascades Regional Health Department (DRS), there is a department that already collaborates with traditional practitioners. This, he adds, is how the DRS was able to identify participants for this workshop. He assures us that the work of this workshop will be inspired by the document drawn up by the Ministry on mental health. At the end of the three-day workshop, Song-manégré Simon Ouédraogo announced that a referral mechanism would be set up to further strengthen collaboration between conventional and traditional medicine.
Representing the DRS Cascades, Nébila Bationo praised the OCADES initiative. For him, traditional medicine already plays an important role in patient care, especially on the mental side. "I'm delighted to see this workshop taking place, which will strengthen the collaboration between modern and traditional medicine for better patient care," he said. The DRS representative expressed his conviction that by pooling forces, modern and traditional medicine can do better and save many lives.
For DPCM Olivia Marie Angèle Awa Ouédraogo, the holding of this workshop is a great day, for it was a moment long dreamed of. She went on to say that the DPCM had been able to develop an orientation module for practitioners of traditional and alternative medicine. This module, according to her, was developed to facilitate collaboration between the two medicines for the well-being of the population and for a much more inclusive world, which takes into account the rights of people with mental illness. "Very quickly, OCADES Banfora wanted to build the capacities of traditional practitioners and all those who work in deliverance prayers, in order to determine how to work with the Ministry of Health," she praised. She reassures us that the participants in this workshop are people who are already taking care of patients suffering from mental illness, and religious people who offer deliverance prayers to help patients recover their health. Her expectations at the end of the workshop are that participants will have a basic understanding of mental illness, and that we will be able to build a communication bridge so that we can consult and refer patients to each other. In her view, some patients are better treated by traditional medicine, while others are better treated by modern medicine.
The participants welcomed the initiative. "I welcome OCADES' vision of development and unity. We are going to work to support the mentally ill. We're going to harmonize our efforts so that we can effectively care for mentally ill patients in the Cascades," confided Diao Lassina Ouattara, tradipratician and focal point for mental health tradipraticians in the Cascades. He believes that this training will provide them with the rudiments needed to cure all those suffering from mental disorders.
Source: lefaso.net/
