Many countries still stigmatise people with mental health problems and fail to provide them with any support. Yet this is a very real issue, particularly in countries in the Global South, where people face many challenges. For the past ten years, Louvain Coopération has been fighting to integrate mental health care into its countries of action and thus help thousands of people who are in deep distress.
Mental health disorders are present throughout the world. According to the WHO, 14% of health problems worldwide are mental disorders. This is therefore a huge problem, which unfortunately affects low- and middle-income countries more, where there are a large number of aggravating factors. As a result, three quarters of mental illness cases worldwide occur in these countries. In Cambodia, for example, 47% of the population suffers from severe stress, which prevents them from living a normal life.
Financial anxieties and parents who wonder every day how they will feed their children, insecurity, the threat of disease... these are just some of the many problems that cause serious anxiety and, in some cases, mental illness. Yet this issue has long been deeply neglected, leaving the vast majority of patients without treatment.