UGANDA

Salama SHIELD Foundation (SSF) was primarily established on the evidence of ethnographic research on HIV/AIDS conducted in southwestern Uganda in the early 1990s. At that time, HIV/AIDS was infecting a third of the population, and as persons in the affected communities told us: “we are dying; it is finished.” While incidence and prevalence did decrease in the ensuing years, the combination of anti-retroviral  access has led to complacency on the part of the general public – HIV remains as a critical concern. Within this immensely troubling context, SSF revitalized the traditional role of mentors and health workers (paternal aunts and uncles), who accompany the field-agents responsible for financial literacy programs in the microfinance program. 

MALAWI

SSF-M’s current focus is on mental health, and how it is that SSF, in partnership with SSF-Malawi, can address the psychological and emotional consequences of gender-based violence (GBV) and domestic abuse. Covid-19 severely affected the well-being and mental health of impoverished Malawians. With men laid off work due to the closure of industries, they would languish at home, increasingly angered and frustrated by their socio-economic circumstances, and often-times lash out at their children and the women in their lives. SSF is currently seeking to more fully understand the behavioural and psychological determinants of GBV, in hopes to generate  social and culturally compelling interventions to mitigate this mental health problem.

ONTARIO, CANADA

Mental health concerns are at the core of Sovereign Core’s efforts to enhance well-being amongst the trauma-affected, black, ethnocultural communities in Ontario. When confronted with the experience of racism, structural violence, and marginalization, members of the black and African Diaspora ethnocultural communities are severely impacted psychologically, emotionally, and physically. The added insult of young black men’s “father hunger”, where there is an absence of significant role modelling and mentorship, only augments their hopelessness, isolation and despair. In partnership with SSF, SC offers mental health counselling, referrals, and advocacy to women, men, children, and families in distress.