Our Dream

Beginning in Uganda, to see an end to overcrowded and under resourced mental institutions throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

To see the end of dehumanising isolation and containment rather than family support and community care, for people with severe mental illness throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

To see the development of a mental health system in Uganda and other sub-Saharan African countries, where hospitals are no longer institutions that strip away a person’s identity and self-esteem, but provide excellent short term acute care, followed by longer term care provided by families with support, and community-based health care centres.

Our Mission

To shift the focal point of care for people with severe mental illness in Uganda and throughout sub-Saharan Africa from confinement and isolation from community, to the dignity of being acknowledged fully as belonging to family and community.

Our Strategies

• To continue to develop the YouBelongHOME intervention model, to overcome the many challenges that block discharge ready persons from overcrowded hospital/institutional care, and to minimize returns to hospital if relapse occurs.
• To create increased community support for families who are the foundation of care, and well-resourced primary health care centres, to provide ongoing, dignified care within community.
• To create a joined-up strategy to create a tipping point of lower hospital patient population, that produces a systems change, away from institutional care to hospitals for short term acute care followed by longer term family and local health centre care.

Our Strong Belief

No matter what the situation or circumstances are of a person, their deep intrinsic human dignity can never be taken away, yet, importantly, it needs to be acknowledged and recognised and upheld within and by family and community.  Institutional isolation gives no acknowledgement of human dignity and the importance of family and community relationships.