Northern Regional Minister Launches Songtaba Project

The Northern Regional Minister, Hon Shani Alhassan Shaibu has officially launched a project Titled, Promoting Women Mental Health Rights organized by SONGTABA, a None Governmental Organization operating in the Northern Region. 

According to the Head of Programmes and policy, Abdul Kasiru Shani, SONGTABA is a women and child rights advocacy organization established in 2005 with a vision to see a society free from inequality and injustice in which women and other vulnerable groups enjoy their fundamental rights.

He added that the project seeks to promote the formulation and implementation of health policies that address women’s basic mental health needs in Ghana, build evidence on women and mental health prevalence, drivers, and responsive measures by 2023, and influence implementation of existing laws and policies on mental health care in Ghana.

The Northern Regional Minister, Hon. Alhaji Shani Alhassan Shaibu in his address assured that the doors of the Northern Regional Coordinating Council (NRCC) are always opened to development-oriented organizations with the vision of expanding opportunities for both infrastructure and human development.

He commended SONGTABA for the effort made for the past 15 years to secure basic rights for women and children especially girls. This has promoted women rights in the region and beyond, and had contributed to setting a national discourse around a very old aged phenomenon of witchcraft accusation that has led many women to live in excluded camps, he added.

He lamented that many of these women through the accusation have suffered some form of trauma and depression and many have resulted in them developing some mental health complications. He, therefore, recommended the project, which is Promoting Women Mental Health Rights in Ghana has come at the right time.

He revealed that various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) are in the process of developing their medium-term development plans. He, therefore, harnessed the opportunity to remind them of a very critical component of human development, which is mental health delivery, and their plans must be seen to reflect strategies to address the challenges of mental health delivery in the country.

The Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government has plans to build a psychiatric hospital to serve the Northern part of the country, as the five regions of the North lack such a facility, he disclosed.

Hon. Alhaji Shaibu expressed gratitude to the UK government for taking the decision to fund the Ghana Somubi Dwumadie (Ghana Participation Programme) which is a four-year disability programme in Ghana with a special focus on mental health.