Model and Strategy
War and displacement produce emotional wounds that render refugees non-functional: unable to care for themselves, their families and rebuild their shattered communities. Traumatic depression and PTSD are characterized by profound loss of hope. When people don't care if they live or die, they won't seek clean water, immunize their children, have safe sex, use bed nets and adhere to ART. Mental health and psychosocial services (MHPSS) restore hope. Using evidence-based talk and drug therapy, PCAF reduces depressive symptoms and restores self-esteem and normal function.
Access: This project increases MHPSS to refugees in their homes and villages by 30%, so they can engage in life-affirming behavior: seek clean water, educate children, etc.
Social Inclusion: MHPSS heals trauma in individuals and educates communities to reduce stigma, allowing refugees to participate in rebuilding their society. Poverty: MHPSS teach positive coping, enabling refugees to reclaim livelihoods critical to economic recovery.
Impact
Groups will be homogeneous, stratified according to diagnosis, gender, HIV status, & age (adult vs. child & adolescents).
This system will be applied to 22,000 Sudanese & DRC internees residing in the Rhino Refugee Camp in Arua where PCAF presently works.
This program for the first time systematically addresses traumatic depression & poverty in post-conflict northern Uganda.
One year following the completion of therapy, groups will continue to meet, support each other, begin raising goats and open a group savings account. They will return to normal function and experience a reduction in depressive symptoms.
Leadership
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Dorothy Kizza
Uganda Country Director