Young Nigerians Are Not Waiting for the System to Fix Community Mental Health

By Pat Vivian

On one of the days that Counseling Africa’s team visited a primary health centre in Ibadan’s Oke Apon community, only two women showed up for antenatal care. It was a small moment, but it said something large: that even the basic infrastructure of maternal health engagement was not guaranteed in every community. If two women were the turnout for antenatal care, what were the chances that postpartum depression had ever come up in conversation?

That question is what brought Counseling Africa, a youth-led mental health organisation, into ten Ibadan communities between May and June 2026.

The six-week outreach spanned ten primary health centres across Ibadan, combining direct engagement with women at antenatal clinic sessions in five communities, Sango, Ojoo, Iwo Road, Oke Apon, and Agbowo, with infographic postings at all ten locations including Eleyele, Oke Itunu, Apete, Onireke, and Ogunpa. Mental health pamphlets were distributed to mothers on speaking days. Over 100 mothers were reached in total, alongside approximately 20 health workers including hospital staff, community health officers, public health workers, and mental health workers.

Most of the mothers encountered during the visits had never heard of postpartum depression before. For many, the team’s visit was their first contact with any form of mental health information.

“Most of the mental health conversations happening today are online,” said Mr. Olusegun Iyejare, founder of Counseling Africa and a licensed developmental psychologist and counsellor. “People in our communities are almost entirely cut off from this information. We went there because someone had to.”

Iyejare represents a growing cohort of young Nigerian mental health professionals choosing community engagement over online visibility, trading the reach of a social media post for the slower, more grounded work of showing up in person at the places where vulnerable people already are.

That philosophy shaped not just the outreach but the booklet the team carried into every community. The Community Mental Health Framework: Reference Standard and Gap Analysis Tool for Stakeholders, authored by Iyejare, is the first known framework in Nigeria to assign clearly defined roles to every category of community mental health stakeholder, bringing government agencies, NGOs, primary health centres and facility managers, traditional and community leaders, religious institutions, schools, families, researchers, the media, donors, and the private sector under one operational structure.

“Community mental health cannot work when everyone is operating in isolation,” Iyejare said. “This framework gives every stakeholder a defined role within a shared structure. We intend to push it to policymakers, health institutions, and development partners across Nigeria.”

The booklet, distributed to health workers during the outreach, marks the first print of what Counseling Africa intends to grow into a widely circulated policy and practice reference across the country.

Pregnant and postpartum women were prioritised as the most immediately vulnerable group, but the organisation has made clear this is only a starting point. Other demographic groups are already in view for future outreach cycles.

Nigeria’s community mental health gap will not be closed by awareness campaigns alone. But it may begin to close when young people decide that waiting for institutions to act is no longer an option.