Valérie da Silveira has been an expert in hair treatment for twenty years.
She spends her days braiding, straightening, combing, and styling hair at her salon, hidden at the end of a dusty lane in Togo’s capital, Lomé. But in the last 12 months, this 42-year-old woman has learned a new talent: supporting lost and confused people. Surrounded by bottles of nail paint, shampoo, and hair extensions, she encourages her clients to speak out when she notices them showing signs of suffering.
Valérie attempts to console them, listens intently, and provides guidance.
“At first, when some of them talked about their problems, I didn’t know what to say other than to suggest they see a pastor,” she says with an embarrassed grin. “I’m not a doctor, but I’ve learned to listen, calm them down, and sometimes recommend they see a real doctor.”
Valérie finished her training in psychological first aid in June 2023. She is among the more than 150 hairdressers from Togo, Cameroon, and the Ivory Coast profiting from the Bluemind Foundation’s initiative. The project intends to enhance women’s well-being in an area lacking therapists and de-stigmatize mental health concerns.
As per the foundation’s report, Togo has a population of eight million, whereas Cameroon has 10 psychiatrists for every 26 million people. The average number of specialists per 100,000 people in Africa is less than two, which is ten times lower than what the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends. Less than 50 cents are allotted to each person for mental health, which is another little budgetary concern. As the WHO said in 2022, these deficiencies, when combined with economic and security challenges, lead to Africa having the highest suicide rate globally.
Even with the enormous demands, mental health problems are sometimes taboo in African countries. The Bluemind Foundation’s founder, Marie-Alix de Putter, remembers that her own family disapproved of her attending a psychiatrist. However, she claims that such meetings “saved [her] life” following the untimely loss of her spouse, Eric de Putter, a Cameroonian theology professor, in Yaoundé, who was assassinated in 2012.
Marie-Alix’s hairdresser was among the first to arrive to help her on that fatal evening. She trusted her with her pocketbook and personal belongings, even while ambassadors and other prominent people were there. “It might seem strange, but I spent my first evening as a widow with my hairdresser,” she notes, highlighting the simple bond of trust they had built over the months before her husband’s death.
Source: Le Monde
