Miss Adetutu Ajibose is a passionate Clinical Psychology doctoral Student at William James College, Massachusetts, USA. She has lived in the USA for over 20 years and her passion for social justice and civil rights drives her involvement and leadership in multiple professional organisations, her ongoing international work, and zeal for multicultural experiences. She held the position of student representative for the American Psychological Association (APA) from 2016-2019 and was a United Nations Fellow for the Association of Trauma, Outreaches and Prevention (ATOP). The well-traveled clinical psychologist with vast experience in mental health issues said she is set to redefine mental health awareness in Nigeria and sort for measures to checkmate substance abuse. Ajibose, who recently launched Towards the Light Foundation (TTLF), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), said her NGO aims to, amongst other goals, develop and promote initiatives that will support youth empowerment, social justice, and in the long run, establish mental health clinics in various communities in Nigeria. In this exclusive chat with The Nigerian Xpress correspondent, Joy Anyim, during her recent visit Nigeria to perfect plan to kickstart her projects, gave an insight into her vision.
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Tell us a little about yourself?
My name is Adetutu Ajibose, I am a fourth-year clinical psychology Ph.D. student at William James College. My major area of concentration is in African and Caribbean Mental Health and Children and Families of Adversity and Resilience (CFAR). I’ve immersed myself in different countries like Kenya and Haiti to learn about other cultures. My doctoral project is one that gave sanitary napkins to schoolgirls in Kenya. We worked with Procter and Gamble, to distribute sanitary napkins, and measure the impact it has on young girls. So, I have been doing this work in different places and since I am a Nigerian, I felt I should replicate the same at home.
The distribution of sanitary napkins, to be undertaken by your NGO, will it be restricted to one state or across the federation?
I’m going to start with Lagos with hopes that it gets bigger. Our hope is to also focus on the destigmatisation of mental health, children and youth empowerment. We will also focus on humanitarian efforts.
Mental health is something that has taken centre stage in Nigeria. The World Health Organisation estimated that one in every four Nigerians suffers some sort of mental illness; what do you think of this report and how will your NGO be helping in this regard?
I visited Yaba Psychiatric Hospital. I met with the head psychiatrist there and told him about my plan to create a campaign to destigmatize mental health. If you really think about it, there is a lot of stigmatization against mental health. People would rather go to church, they would rather seek other kinds of help because they don’t want to believe mental health is real. So, how do we make this real? I wrote a proposal to have a workshop. That was the first plan before I met with the head psychiatrist. So, I told him about the plan, which is to do a mental health screening day and distribute resources. I want to get a list of places where people can go for mental health issues. My NGO would like to impact change and get people to talk about mental health. I think the two mental disorders we would start with are depression and anxiety. How does someone, who is depressed know he is depressed? I think the first step really is to let people know the symptoms of different mental disorders. Psychoeducation is key. We hope to create a campaign around that. The media will be involved. The fact is that people that are suffering from mental health are not different from anyone that is suffering from medical illness. Mental illness is a disease of the brain; it is an illness. They should be treated the same way as someone, who is suffering from any other illness like kidney disease or ulcers.
Do you intend partnering with the government or it’s going to be a sole venture?
That is the next step. I want to have people on my team first. I feel it’s important to have a team before moving in. No work can be done by myself alone. I believe in teamwork and that is part of the reasons I have been recruiting different people since I have been here. I don’t live here, so if I am approaching the government from the USA, they are not going to take me seriously. But if I have a team of people in Nigeria that is persistent, hopefully, we can persevere and move forward, do things and make change happen rapidly.
The ridiculous statistics of psychiatrists to patients, as captured in a report that says Nigeria has less than 150 psychiatrists of her 200 million population, what do you intend to do to fill the gap?
Believe it or not, the ratio of clients or patients to psychiatrists, psychologists, clinicians, and mental counselors is poor. I feel like it is a worldwide problem, not just a problem in Nigeria. We are dealing with it too in the USA but it is not as prevalent as it is here. If we are thinking about launching this nationwide campaign and people start to buy into it by going to see the therapist, what happens if we don’t have the ratio? It’s going to be ridiculous, who is going to attend to them? So, part of our plan is to see how we can improve programmes that can help; how do we get people that are interested in mental health to, perhaps, get government funding or scholarships to be mental health counsellors. To be realistic, if we are going to impact change on smaller communities, we need to give general training to youths and the elderly. We need to train a few people within communities so that people can go to them, and they, in turn, can recognise symptoms of mental health disorders.
It is a big problem, but we have to start finding smaller solutions before we can get to the larger problem. But I have spoken to a few people and they expressed interest but also shared the reality that they might not have time to invest. Many will say that they must work and make money to eat and cannot imagine having extra time to focus on other’s needs. If your general needs are not met, how can you really think about the needs of other people. That is where the issue is.
We have an alarming rate of drug or substance abuse, which also leads to mental disorder, What do you think can be done to stem the tide?
Honestly, it’s a systemic problem. It is deeper than the surface. I visited the Freedom Foundation and spoke with the project manager there. He told me about the alarming rate at which youth are engaging in drug abuse and substance abuse. I inquired about his thoughts regarding the cause of this devastation. Is it that there aren’t enough resources, or they don’t have money to go to school? His reply indicated that peer pressure plays a role in the drastic increase of substance use. Additionally, societal injustices, specifically lack of opportunities and poverty contributes to it. I feel like there is so much to be done. It is a systemic problem. If the government is not paying attention to the youths, who are supposed to be the future of this country, then there is a problem. So, how can we get the message across to the youths that you are important, because when you have low self-esteem and you don’t think that your future is going to amount to anything? For a lot of people that are engaging in substance abuse, it is a way for them to escape their current situation. So, how can we tell the youths that you don’t need to escape? We need more programmes. We need more people to invest in the youths and believe in the youths.
Part of your plan as an NGO is also to drive social justice, how do you hope to achieve that in Nigeria?
Nigeria has been this way for a very long time, and the reality of saying that we are going to come to really make big changes, make sure that everything is equal, that’s a lie. It is not something that I feel like we are going to achieve right now. Do I think it is going to be obtainable? I feel it’s going to take a change in the overall mindset of people within Nigeria. Like the mentality of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. When I speak with people in Nigeria, they feel like this is what it is. They have accepted it, but how do we galvanise people to really say that this is not acceptable? People really need to stand up. It feels like a revolution needs to occur in order for real change to happen. We do need a revolution, we need a change, we need people to stand up and say, you know what, enough is enough. We have more people in the communities than we have in government. Imagine if the people stand up for change and say this is not going to be acceptable, what do you think is going to happen? The government is not going to be able to say no to everybody, but it has to take a change in mentality. In order for any kind of change to happen in history, there has to be a revolution. So, back to your question, for me honestly, changing one person’s life at a time is more important than doing nothing at all. Say within the school system, a child is not able to go to school because their family cannot afford it. We will try to assist the child with a scholarship for some time and we see how we can move forward. So, if we can impact that kind of change, that is social justice because you are creating equality for a child that perhaps, wouldn’t have had that kind of opportunity to go to school and now they can.
In terms of youth empowerment as captured in the goals of TTLF, what specific programmes do you intend to do for youths?
That is still developing. My idea behind youth empowerment, honestly, it is not particularly to train youths in specific skills, it is to develop programmes that will help youths to find themselves. Who am I? What are my interests? If I bring skills, they will come to the skills, but what if that is not what will make them who they want to be? I want them to come and learn how they can develop their self-esteem. So, those are the programmes that I want to bring in; those are the programmes that I feel like can impact change in youths. This is because if I’m changing their mindset and letting them know that many things are possible, then, they can go home and decide okay, I’m interested in learning a skill, perhaps. Maybe if any have a disability, such person will learn that even with such disability, they can still do great things for themselves. So, that is what I mean by youth empowerment. I want the youth to think for themselves. I want them to know that it doesn’t matter what life throws at you; you can persevere through anything.
What challenges have you encountered in trying to effect change as an NGO?
I have had some people that will say they are interested, and they will want to be part of what we are doing, but they just fall off. When they see that you are doing the work, they will meet you and say, ‘Oh My God! I really like what you are doing’. But I don’t want you to like what I am doing. I’m doing this for mankind, this is not for me. My main purpose for doing this really is because I want to see change. I feel like I need people that just don’t talk the talk, but also work the work. And that has probably been the most challenge. Overall, I feel like I haven’t really encountered challenges except for that. I’m always open to collaboration and partnership if we are getting things done.
How will TTLF get funded to do the much it intends to do?
Next year I’m planning our first annual black and white fundraising goal and it’s going to be in the USA. My goal is to get funds and implement more programmes here. We have plans to develop a scholarship programme. We hope to start with three kids in Nigeria; we will do an essay contest and fund a kid for a year.
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If there is one thing you would want to change in Nigeria, considering your exposure and having lived in the USA for over 20 years, what would that be?
Honestly, free education for all children is paramount. We have free education in the USA from elementary school all the way to high school. So, if the government takes care of that, through taxpayers’ money, at least, everyone can have access to education through high school. Hopefully, parents would be able to take care of college tuition. It really baffles me that our country doesn’t have free education for children and wonder why children are roaming the streets.
On a personal note, why the interest in Psychology?
Seriously, my initial plan, when I first started college, was to do Med school or law school, but when I took a few psychology classes, I was like wow! I just got very interested and then I started speaking to different psychology professors in school. That was it. So, it’s been interesting, it’s been a journey and I can’t imagine doing anything else.
What are your other interests outside being a clinical psychologist?
I am a poet/spoken word artist. I enjoy reading, writing, and spending quality time with my family and friends. I was a columnist for the African Aboard Newspaper. It was a relationship column published weekly. I also enjoy traveling and exploring new environments.