In West Africa, hairdressers are on the front line, helping clients with mental health problems (2024)

LETTER FROM WEST AFRICA

Valérie da Silveira has been a haircare specialist for two decades. From morning to night, she braids, weaves, combs and straightens in her hair salon, located down a dirt alley in Lomé, the capital of Togo. Over the past year, the 42-year-old has developed a new skill – caring for troubled minds and hearts. As soon as she senses that her customers are going through a rough patch, she encourages them to confide in her in the familiar surroundings of her small premises, among the packets of wicks, bottles of nail polish and shampoo.

Silveira gives them her attention, dispenses some advice and tries to comfort them. "Before, when some of them told me about their problems, I didn't know what to tell them except to go and see the pastor," she recounted with a rueful smile. "I'm not a doctor, but I've learned to listen to them, calm them down and, when necessary, recommend that they see a real doctor."

In June 2023, the Togolese hairdresser received first-aid training in psychosocial disorders. Like her, over 150 hairdressers in Togo, Cameroon and Côte d'Ivoire have benefited from this short educational course set up two years ago by an NGO, the Bluemind Foundation, with a dual aim: to destigmatize mental health problems and improve women's well-being in a region where therapists are sorely lacking.

According to the Foundation's figures, Togo has just five psychiatrists for a population of eight million. The situation is even worse in Cameroon, where there are 10 psychiatrists for a population of 26 million. On average, Africa as a whole has fewer than two specialized health professionals per 100,000 inhabitants, 10 times less than recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). African countries also allocate the least resources to care for mental illnesses, with less than $0.50 per capita. These shortcomings, coupled with the economic and security crises endured by the continent, mean that Africa has the highest suicide death rate in the world, as the WHO projected in 2022.

Taboo

Despite immense needs, mental health problems often remain taboo in African societies. "My family didn't approve of me going to a psychiatrist," recalled Marie-Alix de Putter, founder of the Bluemind Foundation. Yet it was these consultations, she insisted, that "saved [her] life" after the death of her husband, French theology professor Eric de Putter, murdered in 2012 on a university campus in Yaoundé (Cameroon), where he was visiting.

On that fateful July evening, one of the first people to rush to Putter's home was her hairdresser. As diplomats and VIPs flocked in, it was to this young woman that the French-Cameroonian decided to entrust her handbag and a few personal belongings. It was also with her that she chose to stay after everyone had left. "It may seem strange, but I spent my first evening as a widow with my hairdresser," she remarked today. Hadn't they forged a simple, trusting bond through the weekly appointments they had in the months leading up to her husband's death?

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