Provide Psychiatric Medications in West Africa

Dear Friends, 

We are in the 4th quarter already of 2022!  Here is our 4th report this year.  Since our last update, we have been busy building on the momentum generated by our founder, Gregoire Ahongbonon's receipt of the Dr. Chester M. Pierce humanitarian award by the distinguished American Psychiatric Association (APA) in May 2022.  Not only was it a wonderful time to greet him in the United States but also a time to clarify his goals for us as his US supporters. We also have made contact with a number of mental health professionals interested in visiting Association Saint-Camille (ASC). A biography of Gregoire, Le Regard Qui Libere (The Gaze that Frees), by consulting psychiatrist, Dr. Benoit Des Roches has been published in French. It has been promoted at several events in Canada.  All proceeds will go to ASC.     

In regard to medications, we have been introduced to contacts that are working to secure medications from the pharmaceutical industry on our behalf.  Stay tuned!   Meanwhile, we continue to source through now two providers in India who have been reliable partners through the pandemic and aftermath.  With your generous support, we have been able to navigate through supply chain problems, worker shortages, etc. Future nurses continue to obtain their education on scholarship in Burkina Faso and will return to ASC for employment. 

The leadership team of Les Amis de la (Friends of) Saint-Camille (US and Canadian) was recently able to meet in person in Montreal, Canada to discuss goals and strategy for the upcoming year. ASC expects to open the first addiction center in West Africa hopefully by summer 2023 and make further progress on the land donated for a center in Nigeria. 

ASC continues to strive for self-sufficiency through agricultural pursuits, general medical care which is open to the community, peer support model of care, and patient rehabilitation to gainful employment.  Patients are asked to pay for treatment, but no one is turned away. Deferring costs of medications helps ASC build the treatment and rehabilitation programs.  

Thank you for your continued support on behalf of those we serve at Association Saint-Camille.                   

Links:

• Drone footage of Dassa Addiction Center construction

Dear Friends,

It's been an exciting time since the last interim report.  We met a major part of our mission of raising awareness of the conditions faced by the mentally ill in West Africa at a major medical convention.  

At the American Psychiatric Association meeting in New Orleans in May 2022, our founder, Gregoire Ahongbonon gave a lecture as he received the 2022 Chester M. Pierce Human Rights Award. We were also given the opportunity to meet many participants at our booth "Treatment Not Chains".   The attendance was lower than usual due to the pandemic, but we estimate interacting personally with at least 200 people over the course of the 5 days. 

Gregoire was able to eloquently explain the problems with chaining up of people and other abuses and explain the exorbitant costs of medications.  He made the case that medications should be free for those unable to afford care.  We continue to look for sources of modern medications at a free or significantly reduced cost and are following up on several leads. 

Thank you again for your gifts and support in this important and ongoing work. 

Links:

• Gregoire Ahongbonon's pre-recorded speech to APA