Displaying items by tag: basicneeds

Thirty (30) self-help group (SHG) members have completed a day’s training in bead-making on December 16, 2019 at the Accra Rehabilitation Centre, located at Adabraka in Accra. The trainees were comprised of pregnant women, breast-feeding mothers and teenage mothers and were drawn from six (6) districts and sub-metros within the Greater Accra Region. It was made possible with funding from UK aid under a maternal mental health project titled: “ Enhancing maternal mental health of pregnant women and mothers and their children  to realize  maternal and children child health in Ghana.“  

BasicNeeds-Ghana, on 15th November 2019 disseminated key findings of its 2018 mental health resource allocation and tracking exercise carried out in 30 districts in 5 regions of Ghana to the media in Tamale. The event was sponsored by STAR Ghana Foundation under a project titled “Quality and Accessible Mental Health Care for the Poor and Vulnerable in Ghana”. In attendance were media practitioners from print, radio and TV media outlets.

BasicNeeds-Ghana has successfully ended the first phase of a dry season gardening project funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Adaptation Fund. Activities of the first phase of the project, titled: “Promoting Gardening for Improved Mental Health Outcomes and Productivity in Northern Ghana”, started in May 2018 and came to an end in April 2019.

BasicNeeds-Ghana operates the Model for Mental Health and Development either fully or selected modules of the model in 155 districts, municipal and metropolitan areas across 14 of the 16 regions of Ghana. The organisation implements initiatives directly and through implementation partners in these operational areas. BasicNeeds-Ghana operations in Ghana is divided into through operational areas namely:

BasicNeeds-Ghana has re-launched the UK aid funded Maternal Mental Health project during a well attended ceremony at the British Council in Accra on November 28, 2018.  The five-year project, titled "Enhancing Maternal Mental Health of 29520 pregnant women, mothers and their children to realise maternal and child health in Ghana", seeks to improve the maternal and child health of poor and vulnerable pregnant women and new mothers and their children as a way of improving their quality of life.

On November 30, 2018, BasicNeeds-Ghana convened a meeting with the Greater Accra Regional Alliance for Mental Health and Development as part of a UK funded Maternal Mental Health project titled "Enhancing Maternal Mental Health of 29520 pregnant women, mothers and their children to realise maternal and child health in Ghana". The purpose of the meeting was to discuss with alliance members ways in which they could incorporate maternal mental health in their programming as civil society organisations and individuals interested in mental health development.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is supporting BasicNeeds-Ghana to implement a project aimed at enabling Persons with mental illness or epilepsy in the Savelugu Municipality of the Northern Region to attain food security and meet their nutritional needs.  Target beneficiaries, numbering 100 of which 58 are female, are being supported by the project to take up dry season gardening as a sustainable livelihoods option.

The United Kingdom's Minister of State for Africa, Mrs Harriet Baldwin MP, took time off of her busy schedule to visit a self-help group (SHG) of people with mental illness or epilepsy and their care-givers at the Nima- CDR Community Social Center during her working visit to Ghana on August 28, 2018. This peer support group and several others are among self-help groups supported by BasicNeeds-Ghana with funding from UK aid.

This is a 36 month project funded by STAR-Ghana. It is intended to improve community mental health treatment through increased funding to mental health services. This will be achieved through influencing the Ministries of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) and all MMDAs, Finance (MoF) to commit resources to community mental health care; working with health care providers to improve community mental health care services; facilitating active involvement of public and mental service users in mental health care advocacy; and advocating for the approval of the Legislative Instrument (LI) of the Mental Health Law (Mental Health Act, 2012, 846). It is the expectation that once all of these are done, it will lead to an effectively functioning community mental health system in Ghana.

BasicNeeds-Ghana and its implementation partners held a Programmes’ Implementation Review and Planning Meeting in Tamale from February 21st to 23rd. The meeting which took place at the International Conference Centre of the Univerisity for Development Studies, was meant to take stock of programme implementation of the 2017 project year and plan for 2018.