Dear all, I'm Selasi and I think Dr. Atsu and his team are doing an amazing job in creating Ghana's only toll free mental health helpline which is bridging the gap to poor access and affordability of mental healthcare in Ghana. I'm organizing this fundraiser on their behalf since GoFundMe isn't supported in Ghana and I'd be grateful if you could read their story and lend them some help

"Hi everyone, I am Dr Atsu Latey and I, together with friends and family founded Ghana’s only entirely toll free mental health service whilst in 5th year of medical school.

In commemoration of World Health Day 2017, I featured an article in my Newspaper column on how to recognize depression in people. A teacher from a remote town in Ghana read the piece,  identified herself as being depressed and so she called me for help. She had a traumatizing time when delivering her child, which she eventually lost and was in a turbulent relationship. I assessed her over the phone and deduced that she was suffering from post partum depression. I tried to get her some mental healthcare form where she was but there was no psychiatrist close to her. She didn’t know she was depressed, she didn’t know there was treatment available and she didn’t know where she could get the help from. She was importunate with her requests but unfortunately, I lost her number and didn’t hear from her again.

This marked a turning point in my life! It dawned on me that there may be some people who may be suffering the same predicament as her and according to V. I. O. Agyapong et al. 2019, recent figures indicate there are only 18 psychiatrists in the public mental healthcare system. Thus, Ghana has a psychiatrist-to-patient ratio of 1:2,000,000 people.

With this, I thought of a way to screen the Ghanaian population for mental illness and offer them care which is affordable and closest to them. I didn’t have enough money so I convened an eclectic team of skilled youth who’d contribute their skills pro bono to run the service. It was a move that required them to offer their time and expertise for free. We worked from a single mobile phone and a desk in my hostel room. Now, after 3 years and 8 months, we run a call center (supported by charitable individuals) which uses innovative IT tools to screen the Ghanaian population for mental illness and provide them with affordable care. Over that period, we've been able to screen over 3000 Ghanaians nationwide. Our screening short code, *844*555# is free nationwide on all networks in Ghana, doesn’t require mobile data and works on the most unsophisticated phone.

Random acts of kindness change the world, one person at a time. A published newspaper article on Depression culminated in the creation of Ghana’s only entirely toll free mental health service.

Our hearts contain immeasurable bits which we can share with others, and anytime their hearts beat, we feel a nudge on ours too. Together we can change the world, just one act of kindness at a time.

Today, we want to go a bit further in helping our people. We want to be able to quickly reach the hundreds of queued people who contact our service for help. We want to recruit more call center personnel and staff, and expand our operations and services in order to provide help faster and develop solutions to meet Ghana’s burgeoning mental health problems".

Thank you for your generous donations.