Self Help Recovery Groups

In most African countries there is lack of health care for basic illnesses let alone professional support for people who are very vulnerable and causing high burden to the community due to their addiction. IBC self-help groups are life changing opportunity to change individuals and communities to have happy healthy life.

At IBC six countries  (Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria and Madagascar) now run regular self help groups, Madagascar Blue Cross started in 2022 such groups. In these 6 countries during 2022 each group met according to participants choice of intervals. Most groups met weekly and some met only monthly. By end of 2022 there are 24 trained facilitators who run 11 different groups. There are 123 different participants registered to these groups. Mainly men but also some womens groups.

Many people report that this has been first time when their story has been listened to without judgement. This empowering experience encourages commitment to change.

IBC continues monthly on-line coaching and provides further practical training for the facilitators to enhance their skills on working with the demanding process of supporting people in their recovery process. We actively learn ways to facilitate each step and find tools to prevent relapse and addictive behaviours. The highlight of 2022 was a 3 day workshop in Johannesburg. Only one country could not participate due to delays in Visa process. The interactive workshop gave participants deeper understanding of recovery process and practical skills for group facilitation.

Group facilitation skills and better understanding of addiction as a disease have proven very helpful and discussions in monthly on line trainings confirms that groups are working well.

The self-help approach is very cost effective as it is facilitated by trained volunteers and with less than 5000 USD annual budget one country can cover their local activity costs. However we need these funds in order to run these groups. At the moment we have a funding gap for in country budgets of approximately 20'000 USD and we hope your donations would bridge this gap.

Thank you for your continued support for these life changing activities!