With the war in Sudan raging, civilian youth in Sudan have experienced cascading crises that have impacted not only their physical safety, but also their mental and emotional well-being. In response, AMEL’s Sudan Democracy Action initiative (SDA) has developed an innovative and highly successful approach to addressing the mental distress of the Sudanese youth, who comprise the overwhelming majority of the country’s population. AMEL-SDA was spurred by the need to address the sense of loss that young people face, particularly when so many of them had poured their hearts into, and sacrificed their studies and careers for the sake of, advancing the historic democratic movement before the outbreak of the war brought that progress to a tragic halt in April 2023. To address this double sense of loss and distress, AMEL-SDA forged a multilayered program that worked on both broad and targeted populations to increase mental health and well-being among displaced Sudanese, with support from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Refugee-led Innovation Fund.
On the broad level, the project team created an engaging awareness campaign with critical information about mental health and tips for resilience. The awareness content was created by young Sudanese mental health professionals and targeted Sudanese youth, using diverse formats including brief video explainers, animated videos and infographics. This critical mental health information reached tens of thousands of young Sudanese all across the country, region and world through Facebook, prompting interactions (reactions/comments/shares) from thousands. At the same time, a series of live webinars explored in depth some of the most common mental health challenges (anxiety, depression, PTSD, etc.) as well as approaches for addressing such challenges (psychological first aid, post-trauma growth, etc.). More than 300 Sudanese youth participated in the webinars, gaining insights into these critical mental health topics and unlocking the opportunity to apply to be part of the next level of the program: support groups.
We next activated a more targeted approach, bringing together approximately 15-20 participants to share their experiences and feelings in a safe space facilitated by Sudanese psychologists, who shared exercises for coping and building resilience. Each support group met online on a platform that allowed all participants to be anonymous to one another, thus easing some of the main barriers to opening up and sharing. Over the course of 2-3 weeks, each support group met three times, with different exercises practiced individually by participants in between meetings. By the end of the third session, the participants experienced significant and noticeable improvement in their mental health and well-being. Indeed, the groups provided a positive and supportive environment for displaced youth to process their trauma and develop skills to manage their emotional and physical well-being. A total of 7 groups met between September and November 2024, assisting more than 90 displaced Sudanese, most between the ages of 20 and 30.
Following the conclusion of their support group, participants were invited to participate in the final level of the project: 1-2 individual online sessions with a psychologist. Nearly 60 participants engaged in individual sessions, receiving additional support in improving their mental health. Similar to the impacts of the support group sessions, the participants in the individual sessions demonstrated improved mental health and well-being.
With this tech-powered project, AMEL-SDA was able to spread mental health awareness to tens of thousands of Sudanese, while building more in-depth knowledge among 300+ and improving the well-being of nearly 100 displaced Sudanese youth. This highly successful intervention is an innovative approach to addressing the massive challenge of widespread traumatization and mental distress of the Sudanese population. With such strong success of the pilot program, we are now seeking support to replicate and scale-up the program to provide critical assistance to thousands of additional Sudanese youth - reach out to learn more and get involved!