By Bianca | Project Assistant
Self Help Groups are more important than ever during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. People who are at risk of drinking need support during this challenging time of lockdowns, isolation and insecurity. Self Help Groups are a safe space for people who struggle with any kinds of addictions like substance abuse, gambling, sex addiction, co-dependency, depression, anxiety, or interpersonal problems, where they can talk about it and learn how to deal with their challenges. Since most African countries don’t have any residential treatments, IBC takes an important role of reaching vulnerable people and helping them to recover. IBC has supported the set-up of several Self Help Groups in Ghana, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Uganda. The groups are open for people of all religious backgrounds. The Blue Cross groups use a 12-step model that is based on Finnish Blue Ribbon's Compass framework.
Last October Blue Cross Nigeria started their meetings with 6 attendees. Due to great testimonies and responses they decided to meet every second Sunday and hope to create more groups soon. Blue Cross Ghana also started their Self Help Group in October. Even though they didn’t have a lot of attendees at their first meeting, they are continuing to reach out to people. Knowing that it takes a lot of courage to attend to a Self Help meeting, Blue Cross Ghana is encouraging people to take part in the group if they are struggling with addictions. In Uganda volunteer group leaders got trained to pass on their knowledge and initiate new groups. They started a new group having 8 attendees at their first meeting. Isabirye Jackson, General Secretary of Ring of Hope Uganda is convinced that through Self-Help Groups in Uganda a general awareness of this topic is increasing, which is an important step to overcome addictions.
By accepting that people don’t change by our advice or teaching, we give them room to simply share their story and support them to work on themselves. One of the attendees in Botswana said: “I am not used to people letting me speak and they listen without advising or interruptions, it was very empowering experience”. This is why IBC invests itself in Self-Help groups. We are convinced that Self Help groups are much needed and that they make a big difference in everyone’s life.
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