Our community volunteers are in desperate need of bicycles so that they can reach mentally ill people in remote villages.

In Uganda, mentally ill people living in remote rural villages have little chance of even getting their illness recognised, let alone getting any treatment for it, because mental health services are so far away and there is little understanding and knowledge of mental illnesses in the general public.

To help these people, we use Village Health Teams to identify and help treat mentally ill people in their own communities.

These teams are made up of community volunteers who are already trained in some health areas, such as reproductive health and malarial treatment. We train them to also include mental illness into their work.

They learn how to identify mentally ill people, follow up those who are on treatment, record side-effects and relapses and refer people back to health centres if needed.

Without their vital work, many mentally ill people would not be identified for treatment and would have to continue suffering from the illness. Those who are receiving treatment would likely relapse if they were not regularly monitored.

We want to get the Village Health Teams to more mentally ill people. By giving them a bike, we will help them visit twice as many mentally ill people as normal.

A bike only costs £50 but its value is immeasurable to mentally ill people who rely on the help of the Village Health Teams.

Please click here to donate now >>

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