The two-year Project (March 2016 – December 2017) between Gede Foundation and BasicNeeds is designed to scale-up community based mental health and development services for people with mental illness and epilepsy in the Federal Capital Territory and Nasarawa State. The Project seeks to improve the wellbeing of 1000 people with mental illness and epilepsy along with 800 of their carers. The Project targets both the general population and those living and affected by HIV-AIDS.

To ensure that the communities selected are the most appropriate, a simple yet rigorous selection strategy was developed and used in order to gather the necessary preliminary information. Communities such as Kabusa, Shereti, Durumi, Mpape and Mararaba were selected based on population size, socioeconomic profile, estimated mental health burden and the status of the mental health management systems within the prospective communities. The community entry finally led to the selection of two communities, namely: (1) Mpape (Bwari Area Council in the Federal Capital Territory) with an estimated population of over 500,000 people, and, (2) Mararaba (Karu Local Government Area in Nasarawa State) with an estimated population of over 200,000 people.

The next phase will be to capacity build Community Volunteers, Community Health Workers and other relevant stakeholders in these locations on their roles in the project.

Kindly visit this page for regular information on the Project.