When she looks back at the challenges she has overcome - from stigma, manic episodes, depressive episodes, suicidal ideations, weight gain as a result of side effects from medications and fearing that she would never be happy and healthy again - Esenam Drah wishes to tell her younger self that having lived experience with bipolar disorder is neither a choice nor a death sentence.

At Sightsavers, we’ve learned a lot as we’ve developed our work on SBC, particularly in Ghana where we worked with partners on an innovative programme focusing on inclusion and stigma reduction for people with disabilities, including people with mental health conditions. We want to share some of our most valuable lessons from the Ghana Somubi Dwumadie to help others deliver inclusive and accessible social behaviour change programmes.

The 2023 World Mental Health Day saw Ghana Somubi Dwumadie hosting a film screening event, that spotlighted the impact of the work that grantees under the Evidence and Effectiveness (E&E) Grants for Mental Health and Disability Inclusion have done. The E&E grants seek to empower people with disabilities, particularly people with mental health conditions.

With a treatment gap of around 98%, stakeholders in mental health must identify and develop strategies to confront the huge treatment gap. Fortunately, a theory of change (ToC) as a strategy has the potential to identify and implement mental healthcare plans to bridge the care gap.

International Women’s Day (IWD) 2024 is here and the call to action is ‘InspireInclusion’.

Let’s talk about Adwoa Amponsah-Dapaah, a woman with a disability who has realised her dreams of becoming a lawyer. She focuses on human rights, disability rights, and advocacy where her expertise has consistently contributed to successful outcomes for her clients.

As we approach International Women's Day on March 8th, 2024, the theme “Inspire Inclusion” resonates profoundly with the core values we strive to uphold in our pursuit of gender equality and empowerment. As the Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), and a proud member of the Advisory Group for Ghana Somubi Dwumadie, I find great significance in reflecting on this theme, particularly in the context of women with disabilities.

International Women's Day (IWD) is an annual global celebration dedicated to honoring the achievements and contributions of women worldwide. It serves as a powerful reminder of the progress made towards gender equality while shedding light on the ongoing challenges that women face in various spheres of life.

Recently, I travelled to Ghana to visit our Ghana Somubi Dwumadie (a four-year disability inclusion programme funded by FCDO) to discuss lessons learnt and how we can capitalise on progress made since 2020. The week before my visit, the UK International Development Committee (IDC) questioned the Minister for Development and Africa, Andrew Mitchell, on the adequacy and effectiveness of FCDO’s disability and inclusion rights strategy. Here are a few reflections on this.

Ghana Somubi Dwumadie facilitated interface meetings between leaders of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development (DSW/CD) in 32 districts of Ghana including the Nkoranza North District of the Bono East District, to explore how to enrol people onto the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

Ghana Somubi Dwumadie has over the last 4 years provided support through our technical assistance (TA) model to the Government of Ghana to support the development of responsive and strong disability and mental health governance systems. Our programme start in 2022 quickly coincided with COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed our ‘infant’ programme in its early stages to the gaps within the disability and mental health policy environment.

In a pioneering move, Ghana Somubi Dwumadie has introduced the transformative role of the Disability Accessibility Officer (Mental Health) to provide dedicated mental health support to the programme’s communication manager, who champions this role while navigating her journey with a mental health condition. This strategic addition is aimed at fortifying the Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Unit of the programme and reinforcing communication management efforts.

In the last few months I’ve had the great privilege to visit a number of Ghana Somubi Dwumadie grantees, as well as hosting them all in Accra for a learning event. One of the things I love about field trips is how much I learn about people’s situations which I just would never find written down in a report, no matter how well written by the grantees.

How Ghana Somubi Dwumadie's grant scheme tackles discrimination towards people with disabilities and mental health conditions in the country.

As Ghana readies to mark World Mental Health Day on October 10th, Ghana Somubi Dwumadie stands united with local partners in highlighting this year's theme: ‘Mental health is a universal human right.’

Last week, the Parliament of Ghana passed the Criminal Offences (Amendment) Bill, 2022, commonly referred to as the anti-witchcraft allegations Bill. This Bill is a critical cornerstone in efforts to reduce the prevalence of witchcraft allegations in Ghana. Allegations of witchcraft can have devastating consequences for women, mostly older women accused of witchcraft.

The Parliament of Ghana has passed the long-awaited Bill to proscribe witchcraft accusations, which seeks to criminalise the practice of declaring, accusing, naming, or labelling people as witches. This comes after concerted efforts by numerous stakeholders to combat the ongoing social menace of witchcraft accusations which primarily target poor, older, and widowed women.

Organisations of people with disabilities exist all around the world. They are groups that bring together people with disabilities to share their expertise and experience, empower their members, and advocate for change.

As a programme, Ghana Somubi Dwumadie has always emphasised working in partnership with our grantees, and taking supportive approaches. In particular, because we are working in the disability and mental health space, we’re especially mindful of matters of inclusion, participation and accessibility.

At Sightsavers, we believe that people with disabilities should have access to quality, inclusive health services and be able to use them without fear of stigma or discrimination. This is the driving force behind our involvement in the Ghana Somubi Dwumadie.

The Grantees’ third learning and reflection event was going to be held in-person from 28 – 30 June 2022 with every participant attending from the Northern, Upper East, Volta, Ashanti and Greater Accra regions. The planning had progressed well but less than a week to the event, everything changed.