#mentalillnessnsexualabuse some mentally ill are vulnerable to being sexual abused like Grace was. She is 23 years and has been ill since 2012. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2013. A man purred her to bed 2 months ago, given her a ring that he was going to marry her. He just needed to know how deep was her own love to him. We can aptly plead insanity here, she doesn’t have all her mental faculties to make informed choices. Now she is pregnant and the man has disappeared. The last time she saw him he gave her 14.000frs to go for an abortion. Why are some people so wicked? Grace is suicidal, her mother is over the edge with worry and sadness. Theirs is a struggling family of 6 kids with she being the third. After 4 years away from school due to the illness, she resumed form 5 last year hoping to write her O’levels. Please, listen to her story and reach out to help out if you can. We need all the help we can get and no amount is too small. Our phone number for any Mobile money donations in Cameroon is +237672576011 Hope for the Abused and Battered. Ref should be Grace, our email address is hope@hope4abusedbattered.com. Website is http://www.hope4abusedbatteted.com. Thank you all, #thereishope.
Category: Epilepsy Advocacy
My Heart cries out for Boubou’s Case: Any mite goes a long way
Hello World,
When I recently went on GoFundMe with the intention of starting a campaign to crowd source some funds for an MSC in Mental Health Psychology to start in September, I could not help but read this campaign. My spirit moved me to do all I could to get the word out and help a desperate family get the utmost medical attention their sweet Boubou needed.
I found an local number on the campaign and got in touch, and it was Boubou’s mother herself and she was from my own country – ha. Boubou is 5 years and has probably been through so so much we can’t even begin to imagine. She told me he now had induced epilepsy – oh my poor Boubou. Boubou is his nickname and it is an affective name for a sweet baby like him.
Please, let me stop writing and just wish that any gentle readers and followers of my blog will donate a mite to Boubou’s cause, and why not share this post as much as possible.
May God bless us all abundantly
Have a great week
Our Gbm Blog is among the top 50 on epilespy Hurray…
Join us on the announcement post in celebrating right? Thank you all for your support and encouragement. Read the nomination by Feedspot right here!
About this weekend P1
Arrival at the Mountain Village
The Charriot of the Gods
At the CRTV (Cameroon Radio and Television) Regional Station
Huge Breakfast at my co-founders before the hike
Hiking and visiting the Shrine of Our Lady of Grace
Hello world, so you should all guess by now that this area girl with these different auras knows how to enjoy herself. So far, my weekend has been a mix of rest, fun and work on my company. The P2 will be about the second event we are hosting today. And oh the pictures seem to read from last to first… Eg last one is my arrival at the mountain village, next one is the mountain, then my being invited to the national radio impromptu to talk about the Gbm Foundation (7 am and it was damn cold), fourth one is huge breakfast offered by my Co-Founder (asap after the show) and finally hiking and team building (that afternoon – Saturday). When I got back home by 6 pm, I went straight to bed until 4 am this Sunday morning…
Till then, enjoy… and take care of yourselves; we all got but one way tickets to through this journey of life
The enlarged medical mission kicks off today: Wish me well
So DDay for the medical mission is here and we are estimating to help 1000 beneficiaries.
I am hoping to coordinate to the best of ability and delegate as much as possible too. We have 10 volunteers and our Executive Director came in from the US with some medications and volunteers.
Wish me well o, I wouldn’t send juju your way 🙂
If any of you wants to check out more about my village other than juju stuff, here is a link:
GO FUND US: SUPPORT AND SHARE OUR CAMPAIGN FOR EPILEPSY & MENTAL WELLBEING
Dear all,
It’s that time of the year again and our foundation is organizing an enlarged medical mission to it’s pilot area in the Lebialem division for epilepsy, diabetes, mental illness and al.
I am appealing to you to support our Gofundme camapign by making any donation you can.
You can equally share the campaign with your networks. Here is the link:
Thanking you so much in advance for your generosity and wishing you all the best of the season.
Give it a try even if you are past dateline: You never can tell
” Even if the dateline is past, don’t shy away if your gut tells you to apply… do it and the answer will either be a yes or a no” One of my mantras
Hello world, inspiring and motivating us all with my personal experience.
I registered to attend the 3rd African Epilepsy Congress on behalf of the Foundation created in memory of my late brother (I am the country director), and I thought I may as well submit an abstract. Guess what happened… It got accepted and I have to do a poster presentation for the 3 days of the conference.
I had noticed on their website that there were a few bursaries available, but the dateline was a week past when I received notifcation that the abstract was accepted. One of the conditions for applying for the bursary was that your abstract had to have been accepted.
I decided to try anway although there was some skeptism around me – they thought I should be glad my abstract was accepted in the first place and that the bursaries were clearly for young researchers etc etc
I sent an email pleading my case as follows:
“From: Marie A. Abanga [mailto:marie@gbm-em.org]
Sent: 02 February 2017 09:03
To: 3rd African Epilepsy Congress
Subject: Re: 3rd African Epilepsy Congress 2017 – Abstract acceptance
Dear Congress Sectretariat,
Thank you very much for this notification of the acceptance of my abstract. I am so moved, it is a dream come true.
Please, I have a query. I didn’t apply for a bursary because of one of the conditions which read as follows:
- Applicants must have submitted an abstract and received a score of at least 4 (out of 5)
Given that I had not yet received any acceptance or score of my abstract, I hesitated sending in an application.
Considering that I fulfill all other conditions, could I exceptionally be given a few hours to submit an application for a bursary?
Our Foundation is still so maiden and not funded – any resources we may set aside to sponsor my participation will leave a big toll on resources available for other programs earmarked for the year.
In sincere anticipation,” and I got a yes thus:
“Thank you for your email.
We can allow your request to apply for a bursary. Please complete and return the attached application form as soon as possible and by tomorrow (Friday 3rd February) at the latest.
Kind regards,
3rd AEC Congress Secretariat“
And so I did all it expected and sent my application for the bursary by COB that same day. I mean, with the dateline of 22 December 2016, wasn’t this amazing they were even open to me on Feb 02? And then yesterday morning I got this oh my:
“Dear Marie Abanga,
On behalf of the Scientific and Organising Committee of the 3rd African Epilepsy Congress, I am pleased to inform you that you have been awarded a bursary to attend the congress…“
If I didn’t ask to be considered for a late application, I would have missed out big time. And if it had been a No, it would have sucked but I would have been glad I tried.
Therefore and please, sometimes we just need to face our fear in a positive light – and ask anyway. I used to fear failure big time, but a lot has changed with time and life. Even if there is a dateline and am late, I will pray and apply – mentally ready for a No or YES!!!
And you, any time you faced your fear and went for it even after the dateline?
Have a nice weekend
I submitted an abstract to the African Epilepsy Congress; and guess what…
Hello World,
This week starts off great for me – & us at the Gbm Foundation, it is one full of anticipation. Last thursday at precisely 20.35 pm, I saw an email notifcation from the International Burreau for Epilepsy captioned: Re your abstract… Well, I didn’t want ‘bad’ news just before sleeping – I took a deeep breathe, prayed and slept…
Next morning after an intense workout, it dawned on me it could very well be an acceptance of the abstract I submitted… I started singing songs of praise because I had hesitated submitting an abstract in the first place – am no researcher nor scientist you know.
Dear Marie Angele Abanga,
We are pleased to inform you that the abstract you submitted to the 3rd African Epilepsy Congress 2017, with the title “The Need for Epilepsy Mobile Clinics to Plug the Knowledge Gap in Rural Settings”, has been accepted… (What else did I need to blow up?)
Kindly read the blog post I did on the foundation’s blog this am, and follow us there to support our work. I thank all here and everwhere else who already support us and me most especially in any & everyway.
I hope my journey with the foundation and my other endeavours like weight loss, inspire and motivate us all not to give up on our projects. We need to continue our various advocacies especially for delicate, sensitive and largely marginalized causes like Epilepsy awareness and mental illness care regardless of the fact that sometimes life is really simply weird.
STIGMA: The Script’s Synopsis P2
Hello world, pursuant to P1, here is P2:
…This is actually the setting into which Precious, Victor and Mercy are born to papa Thomas and mami Maria. Papa Thomas is a doubting Christian who has fallen out with the church because he insists on wanting to take a second wife since mami Maria has so far giving him only one child (He refuses to count the first two sick children as his). He has surnamed this third child Mercy and although she is only a girl meaning of not so much value to him, he desperately needs the ancestors or God to have mercy on her and spare her from the ‘badluck’ of her siblings.
The movie takes us through the traumatic ordeal of Precious and Victor, an ordeal which begins at home and ends up in school. They are at first taken by their parents to the traditional healer where they undergo near fatal and highly superstitious practices in a bid to rid them of the ‘curse’ source of the badluck, and when the procedure fails, they are dragged to the church with the hope that the reverend father will exorcise the demons in them.
The movie also brings out the guilt, burden and pain mothers feel and bear throughout such ordeals. In our case, mami Maria the mother of the sick children, bears it all bravely, leaving no stone unturned to get her husband to change his staunch traditional mentality and try out the ‘whiteman’s medication’ for once. It is she who when at her stall sees the NGO’s sensitization posters, pleads desperately with her husband that they go to the mission hospital and attend their presentation to learn some more. She equally plead with the catechist to come talk to her husband mindful of his disapproval of papa Thomas’s penchant for polygamy. The catechist’s visit leads to their being received by the reverend Priest. Reverend Fada as he is calls, seizes the opportunity to dismiss all what has been said at the village square and the traditional healer as false beliefs/practices; nothing more.
The lives of Precious and Victor henceforth take a dramatic turn for the better once reverend Fada refers them to the mission hospital. He knows that help can be found at a hospital because his cook’s child who suffers from what he refers to as epilepsy, gets a lot of help from the hospital in the nearby village.
Precious is almost denied a chance at the ‘whiteman medication’ when her father papa Thomas grumbles that he doesn’t have money to take two children there. He will rather take the boy and leave the girl to end up which ever way. Her dear mother steps in again by bringing out her savings. There is no way mami Maria can let her husband blatantly and viciously discriminate against her two sick children because one is a girl and to him of little value, while the boy a younger sibling deserves all the chances at getting better.
At the hospital, the children are registered for consultation by the neurologist who comes during the medical missions organized by the NGO. This NGO which has been working on the field for barely two years now, has indeed been able to secure the personal support of one of the few neurologists in the region. The Neurologist they are told brings a special machine to test the brains of the selected patients so as to know the exact type of the brain disorder they suffer from, and to be able to prescribe medication which can prevent the fainting or seizures as the attacks are called in the hospital. The God sent NGO has also brought some subsidized medication which thanks to mami Maria’s savings, the family can afford.
All is well that ends well, at last the children can now go to school. Another exciting news is that they don’t have to fear the reaction of their teachers and fellow students if they have a seizure in school because the NGO has also brought handbooks about epilepsy for the teachers. The teachers will be trained and they will in turn teach the students on what to do if a friend is having a seizure. The NGO is even sponsoring the Fon’s Football Cup tournament (among other projects), so that through the sponsorship they can sensitize the entire community on the brain disorder and advocate for a change in mentality towards persons living with epilepsy – thus fighting against stigma. Epilepsy they emphasize is not contagious and so people will stop running away and shaming them when they are having a seizure. Epilepsy they even add can be cured and prevented. All this is so new, it makes the news in the whole village.
In the end, Precious and Victor become heros in their village. Their story is reported in the local newspaper and the NGO tells them they will be taken to the city to share their story. Soon, many other parents stop hiding their sick children at home, they take them to the hospital and write down their names so that they will be selected and called back when the NGO organizes another medical mission….
Stay nearby for P 3 next week and thanks for all the support
STIGMA: The Script’s Synopsis P1
Hello World and happy Thanksgiving in advance to my Americanas…
Ok, I am constantly on the go and shared with you here recently how I was reinventing myself . I am a passionate woman there is no doubt about that… I received so many talents from My Almighty Father and just realized I have to do my best with those for his Greater Glory and the service of mankind. Here is the synopsis to the script I just finished writing for a movie to be titled: STIGMA…
STIGMA: What comes to mind? Shame; humiliation; embarrassment; rejection; abuse; and all other such negative words. We at the Gbm Foundation have thought about a much more virtual, vocal and poignant way to step up our fight against the stigma surrounding persons living with epilepsy and those affected by their conditions such as their families and extended circles of interaction like their schools, churches and communities.
This movie revolves around two children called Precious and Victor who live with epilepsy although wrongly understood simply as fainting fits by all in their community. Their suffering is labelled ‘badluck illness’, and it’s cause is attributed to juju.
The two children and their family are the victim of stigma in all its dimensions. They are only saved by the coming to their village of an NGO working to provide medical assistance for persons living with epilepsy, with the main objective to combat the stigma surrounding this chronic neurological disorder.
Precious and Victor together with their kid sister Mercy, live in the remote village of Fiebondem in Cameroon.
Cameroon has a very high rate of prevalence of Epilepsy in the world, and a 2016 lancet neurology article holds that the country could very well have the highest rate in the world. The village of Fiebondem, one of those villages in the country with higher rates of epilepsy, has been abandoned to itself unfortunately. In addition to the shortage of health facilities and supplies especially with regards to epilepsy, the extremely seasonal and barely carved out roads make it impracticable to attempt going there for nearly half a year. This waterloo has taken a toll on the growth of the village and the villagers, who have caved in on themselves, and have all but clung on to their traditional beliefs and practices. Indeed, the name of the village reflects on this abandonment as they submit themselves to the mercy of their creator: Fiebondem literally means “Give it to God”.
The dilemma in Fiebondem starts over half a century ago with a high infant mortality rate, The villagers in those days and circumstance can only cry out to their gods while blaming their misfortunes on ‘witchcraft’: witches are consequently identified, rounded up and burnt at the stake.
Several years later, children no longer die at birth, but others now succumb to a new phenomenon of fainting fits with dire consequences for the victim and their families.
It is still so shameful to be pointed out as a household having one of such ‘badluck children’. Indeed, having more than one of such ‘badluck child’ can easily lead to serious retaliation and rejection from the village by the community. The ‘badluck children’ are quickly hidden away by their families, tied to their beds if need be, and they are not sent on any meaningful errands not to talk of to school. Once the ‘badluck children’ themselves start feeling rejected, they either don’t equally want to go anywhere for fear of society’s repudiation of their ‘bizarreness’– hence social/self isolation, and they are either pulled out, kicked out or they drop out of school and run away from the village altogether. Such is the disastrous impact of stigma cause by epilepsy in the village of Fiebondem…
Kindly stay tuned for P2 and co in the following days…
Wishing us all the best
MAG's Blog 