Entrant: Self
Nominee: Ashies Banana

I am an environmental peace activist who works with African women refugees, asylum seekers, and African immigrant women. I am launching a new program to aid with the mental health healing of African women refugees.

Mobile ethno-psychotherapy for African women with mental health disorders strategically serves women using diverse-cultural strategies for self-help and peer-support. The goal of the program is to encourages women to explore, express and communicate their emotion in a safe environment, to discover what they need to live in a more fulfilling way, and what they need to say goodbye to the past and move on.

The support groups work with a variety of creative formats and deeply appreciates the healing power of myths, rituals, and play. The healing and transformation process relies on the participants own creative process and is a central theme of my work. Specific issues like sexual trauma, gender-specific violence, domestic violence, low self-esteem, HIV/AIDS prevention, and alcohol and drug abuse are addressed.

Refugee and minority women are at a higher risk of developing mental illness due to the stress and problems linked to exposure to violence, poverty, incarceration, and homelessness. Immigrants and refugees are specially vulnerable to mental illness. Many immigrant women suffer from a loss of social support, stress from cultural differences, and language barriers. These factors can lead to the feeling of isolation and can prevent women from seeking treatment. Also, many refugees have lived through the traumas of war, torture or genocide and are more likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorders.

As a traditional mental health recovery facilitator my focus is on self-help. I have developed – and am still developing – concepts, skills, and strategies to teach and motivate clients to heal themselves. I have been practicing traditional mental healing with my grandmother from the age of 10 until recently. Thus I am able to support groups of women performing their own cultural mental healing rituals. I do not provide direct counselling services as such. The skills and strategies I teach are not necessarily a replacement of other kinds of treatment but complements.

My focus is on self-help. From my experience as a woman-for-peace-activist and therapist, I am familiar with extreme mood swings in women and girls who experience psychiatric symptoms. My approach and interventions include raising hope, ecological wellness tools, and wellness recovery action planning. This includes the introduction of individual healing concepts within the own culture and tradition, relapse prevention in ethno-psychological crisis intervention, developing of a strong support system and of a network to mental health specialists and health providers.

Further notions are education, personal responsibility, self advocacy, the building of self-esteem, healing trauma using own traditional and religious rituals, and relieving loneliness and worry. My expertise is not related to psychiatric medication, psychiatry or legal advocacy. I do not provide direct counselling services as such. The skills and strategies I teach are not a replacement of other kinds of treatment but complements.