From patient to advocate in South Sudan: living mental well-being

Mading began psychiatric treatment with the MSF team in Mayen Abun in June 2024 and continued until August 2026, when his recovery allowed him to be taken off medication.

A person who has lived through a mental health condition carries something special: the knowledge of what it is like to be on the other side of stigma. When that person speaks within their own community, they can have an impact that clinicians may not be able to accomplish. They make their needs easier to understand. They show that recovery is possible and, in doing so, help loosen the fear and distance that stigma creates around people struggling with their mental health.

That shift from patient to advocate matters for the person who has survived trauma, helping them find a role and a sense of belonging again. It matters for the community, which learns from someone it already knows and trusts. It also matters for MSF: our response is built with communities rather than simply delivered to them, with the people we treat at the centre of our work.

Mading still comes to the clinic every month for a check-up and has never missed an appointment. He wanted to share what he has been through so that others might learn from his experience:

"Someone who is mentally unwell is often seen as a drunkard or a useless person. I was sick for nine years, and in that time, I destroyed a lot of things. I injured my younger sister. I had a child and never even thought about her. Now I understand how vital mental health is — for me, for my family and for the community.

“What made it easier for me was not only the medication, but the people who cared for me while I was sick: the counsellors, my family and myself. It also helped that there was somewhere to go at all. Facilities that treat these illnesses are very rare here. What makes it harder is the stigma from others and certain cultural practices.

“Social integration and my family helped me, especially my cousin, who never gave up on me. He checked on my condition, my medication, and my diet. That played a major role in my recovery.

“To those who are on treatment: stick to what you have been advised, and do not copy one another. And one more thing. I was once a teacher, and I taught some of the nurses I now meet in this hospital, back when I was teaching in primary and high school. Now that I am of sound mind, I feel proud that I contributed something to my own treatment because I helped educate a future doctor who later saved me."

In Twic County, MSF runs mental health activities as part of comprehensive care in collaboration with the Ministry of Health at Mayen Abun Hospital, alongside community awareness work at our integrated community case management sites in camps for internally displaced people. Counsellors and community health workers hold awareness sessions in the camps themselves, often under a tree with 50 or more people gathered, bringing support closer to where people live rather than waiting for them to reach a facility. Three out of four patients seeking mental health support have endured intercommunal violence or gender-based violence.

Since the start of 2026, MSF has been supporting mental health services in different areas in the country such as Mayen Abun, Abyei, Bentiu, Pieri, Leer, Chuil, Malakal, Yei, Kajo-Keji, and Renk.