Human Health Aid-Burundi

Mission

To contribute to and help improve the mental wellbeing of people and communities in Burundi.
To facilitate rapid and easy access to psychosocial assistance and support for refugees, internally displaced people and victims of disasters in affected communities and areas.
To study, do research and carry out applied research - disseminate innovation-based access and intervention (WASH, SVB etc.) - adding to the evidence base of practice in a variety of mental healthcare settings.

Overview

Insignificant involvement of civil society, local organisation and low participation by communities has negatively impacted on the availability of emergency support in cases of conflict, disasters and poverty. Mental health and psychosocial emergency support challenges in the Burundian context of war where sexual abuse, rape, torture and other inhuman treatment constitute weapons of war, has not been given enough priority. While limited access to mental health care exists in the urban areas, the rest of the country, where many cases of sexual and gender-based violence are reported, have many areas where limited or no aid and/or emergency organisations operate and where people and communities have no access to mental health of psychosocial care. In many cases where there is limited aid or an emergency presence, the services on offer are largely insufficient due to a lack of knowledge, limited skills and expertise and a lack of capacity for training and education. To us it is clear that existing aid and support available in the non-urban areas are limited and inefficient - there needs to be a novel and innovative intervention to effectively deal with the SGBV humanitarian crises in Burundi.

Summary of relevant work:

We intervene in four majors fields:

Human Health Aid-Burundi develops and implements sustainable structures to provide psychosocial and mental health care support services to people and communities, mainly women and children, in the conflict areas of Burundi and, via its partners, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
We collaborate with local communities to assess and intervene in situations where refugee and internally displaced children have been subjected to adverse social conditions (like rape, war, food and water insecurity, armed conflict and violence) and as a consequence suffer, amongst other responses, anxiety, depression, trauma and despair.
Our team works with children who are not safe inside the camps as well as those who stream across the border to hosting neighbouring countries. We try to provide rapid and early psychosocial support and psychiatric referrals available to the many children and young people who are forced to migrate across boarders to camps in receiving countries.
HHA Burundi provides direct aid in the form of food, clothes, mosquito nets and wash (building toilets and supplying clean water) to natural disaster victims. El-Niño storms have caused countrywide flooding and landslides, threatening water and food security and left many people destitute and without livelihoods.

Address:

6282 Boulvard de l'OUA
Immeuble REETRACO,
1st Floor
Bujumbura
Quartier NGAGARS
Route vers Marche Chez Sion, en Direction de l'Aeroport International de Bujumbura

Human Health Aid-Burundi

People