Your support has made many things possible this year. In Burundi, we trained more people in trauma-counselling; in Rwanda, elderly genocide survivors have joined peer counselling groups; in Sierra Leone students are getting involved in sharing mental health knowledge with their peers, and in Uganda more people with mental health issues and their carers have […]

Growing up in Britain’s industrial heartland in the 1970s, you couldn’t miss how important manufacturing was to post-war economic success. Whether they were making cars or textiles or cutlery, people felt part of something bigger. The global economy has changed dramatically, with the service economy and retail replacing manufacturing in many places. But the importance […]

We need your help! Please take a moment to nominate Network for Africa for a Benefact Group grant. The more nominations we receive, the greater our chances of being awarded vital funding to continue our work supporting people living with mental health challenges in post-conflict communities. Click here to nominate us. When completing the nomination […]

The late, great Canadian songwriter and poet, Leonard Cohen, told us: There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. Cohen wrote frankly and often about his mental health challenges. Throughout his career, he confronted stigma, offering empathy to those who endure bleak moments when they see only darkness. Whatever you think of […]

Each year we share key information about our progress, growth and impact. We’ve brought it all together in our 2024 Impact Report. From measurable outcomes to the moments that mattered most, it captures our work in 2024. Thank you to Carrie Braes for making it all come together.  

Twenty-two years ago, I sat beneath a scrawny, brave little tree in an internally displaced persons camp in Darfur. It was 102 degrees F/38 C, and the Sudanese women I was meeting drew their brightly-patterned headscarves over their mouths to keep the gusts of sand and dust away. They apologised because they had no tea […]

Twenty-one years ago, just before my first trip to Rwanda, I attended a lecture on the Rwandan Genocide at London’s Imperial War Museum. One of the speakers explained that the men responsible for gang raping Rwandan women were being given food and anti-retroviral medication in jail by aid agencies. Meanwhile, the women they had raped […]

It can be annoying to be told you are over-thinking an issue. We hear the expression often in our projects in Africa, but it has a different meaning. Survivors of conflict who are troubled by horrific flashbacks tells us they “think too much.” Not all societies have the same familiarity with mental health that people in the […]

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” Victor Hugo. In recent times Sierra Leone has suffered a triple whammy of challenges: eleven years of civil war, Ebola and then Covid. On top of this, the west African nation regularly features on the list of the ten poorest countries in the world. […]

A few years ago, we met a man who made a fortune in the financial markets and set up his own foundation “to save the world.” We were hoping he might wish to achieve at least part of this worthy goal by partnering with Network for Africa. We described our cautious approach, finding reliable local […]