For nearly 30 years, Gregoire Ahongbonon, an engineer from Benin, has helped many people in West Africa have problems caring kiakili.Amekuwa residential facilities managed by his non-governmental organization, the Organization of St. Camille. Above all, he volunteered to deal with the behavior of locking people with mental retardation.
Aime has come now from his room. Walks and closer and closer, her ankles were tied to the foot of metals.
This story unfolds in a small house in the city of Calavi, outskirts of Cotonou, capital of Benin. Aime, 24, has mental problems and his older brother and sister have been cared for according to their abilities.
"Closeness we had because he bothers people tend to come here and complain," says his brother, Rosinos.
"Sometimes they even attack people on the street and demanded they rob something. They screamed uninterruptedly, day and night. Have been disturbed too much. "
The family could not afford Aime receive special treatment in government hospitals for mental diseases, Jacquot Public Hospital, where the fee rises franca 20,000 CFA each month - about half the average wage. Instead, they gave themselves the treatment recommended by the hospital, and even eight months after the drugs were unable to buy them.
Aime had begun to be quieter, but without the reference medicine his illness quickly. Rosinos and sister, were frustrated when he attended a lecture Edmunda Ahongbonon Gregoire, who had objected to the exclusion and marginalization of people with mental retardation.
Later Edmunda asked Ahongbonon advice, and Aime now sent a managed and education center of St. Camille Calavi area, which kitawagharimu very small amount of money.
The organization has more than ten stations Ivory Coast, Benin, Togo, and Burkina Faso, which is caring for thousands of patients.
Ahongbonon and his staff are looking for homeless people, who were thrown into the streets, and their families, and resettlement. They also traveled throughout West Africa and following the stories of people who are mentally ill or under house arrest who are abused and suffer in rural areas. When he is made a person like that tend to him.
"Patients mental illness are viewed as people who possessed or bewitched," says Ahongbonon.
"That's the normal state for Africa, but the situation is worse Benin, Benin ... because it is where the magic of voodoo and therefore this belief is more severe."
In Benin, a person is sick, the first thing to be considered is the family doctor sent her to the indigenous or meetings of evangelical preachers who claim they can heal through prayer
Pelagie grandson AGOSSOU, Judikael, fell ill, his friends persuaded him to send him one church he pulled out demons.
He rejected this advice, but tried many other things, including a visit to indigenous healer.
Judikael problem was a kind of schizophrenia, and she heard zikimwambia put off his clothes and get out of the house.
"Once, after my escape child home again, one girl came up to me and tell me that Judikael was running around the city with only underwear," says AGOSSOU.
"I ran quickly, but he saw me, he started to run ... Nilimkimbiza and people began to rush too, thinking he was a thief. I'm with him I was shouted 'Msimdhuru, is my son.' I was very worried that police would harm they think is a thief."
He tried to send him to a private clinic but it was too expensive, and it is here where he decided to visit a traditional healer, where franca paid 80,000 CFA (£ 93) and was given medication that did not work.
"I called to tell her medication did not work," AGOSSOU says, "and he replied, 'Then stop him.'"
There are many varieties of indigenous patients.
Physician kind of "bokhonon" reflects spiritual issues to identify and provide a curse, and "amawato" is a folk medicine healer.
"The patient came first, tend naagua, and whether he violated the norms, he offended someone or been bewitched," says Nestor Dakowegbe, one of the traditional healers are widely known in the country.
"He becomes easier to treat mental illness if you come from or bewitched victim misdeeds of his ancestors - there is only a cover. But whether it is inherited or due to natural phenomenon such as being hit on the head, then it is hard to measure."
Nestor Dakowegbe is bokhonon healer and shaman to mawato, so its treatment tend to have medicinal properties, including applications for gods and actions that take anfaa patient. Boasts About the knowledge that his family has been with them for many generations, and does not see any threat from scientific treatment.
"Some doctors already know. When they are detected by the patient and European medicine does not work, tend to come to me.
"This happened so many times that we were partners. Sometimes, I also ask doctors to help me in these modern complex cases. "
Galbert Ahi, one of the doctors in Benin mentally, and former director of the hospital Jacquot, is one of the doctors who believe mental illness can work with traditional healers.
He tells me a story about a woman who had been struggling with depression, who took her to a traditional healer, and he recovered.
"I had very humble, a doctor who specializes with his degree, went looking for a doctor to help me blind 'see' what the problem was," he said.
"Some doctors say, warning:" You do I treat but we heals. "And I mean that after treating the patient, should be to complete the work. Walainishe everything must be restored to the patient in his culture."
Gregoire Ahongbonon concerned about such an arrangement.
"The attitude that we have in Africa is that physicians are better than ordinary doctors in treating mental illnesses. But I've seen the opposite. Many patients begins at the church and to the charmers, and so before they reach the hospital, their situation has become very bad.
"Are these natural healers they heal? That is the main question."
Camille Saint Agency does not have any doctor of mental illnesses lasting Benin, but are visited by doctors from Europe regularly.
They visit and stay for several weeks to several months after each pass.
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