Mental health is increasingly taking centre stage in the national discourse and different statistics that are published paint a grim picture, where the disease is increasingly affecting the younger population. It is not just an issue of Rwanda, but a challenge that the global population is grappling with. For instance, figures from the World Health Organisation indicate that one in seven children between 10 and 19 years experiences a mental disorder. This accounts for 13 per cent of the global burden of the disease in this age group. The picture is not any different in Rwanda because figures released by the country’s biggest neuropsychiatric hospital indicated that the prevalence among youths under 19 was at 20 per cent of the diagnosed cases. Experts have pointed to family-related conflict as a major source of mental breakdown among children. Children continue to bear the brunt of living in toxic environments at home where parents, in their domestic conflicts tend to forget that children who are usually caught in between, end up being victims of such. Another major trigger as pointed out by experts, are social factors and habits including unemployment and the peer pressure among the youth, where they end up feeling inferior to their peers in the society and this sense of inadequacy ends up weigh heavily down on them that it affects their mental welfare. It does not help things when their plight is ignored for long, either because of lack of awareness around mental health within communities, or due to the pervasive social biases associated with this kind of condition. Therefore, it all comes down to awareness. Many of the cases in our communities are exacerbated by lack of awareness around mental health which leads to vices like stigmatizing the victims, making an already bad situation worse. In fact, with the awareness, families – mainly the parents – will be more mindful of sucking children into their conflicts thereby reducing the incidence.
