PatrickMwewa
Registered nurse in Lusaka. The advocate behind Zambia's first mental health bonfire.
It started with a fire.
In Zambia, mental health is something families keep behind closed doors. Patrick's answer was to bring people outside, sit them in a circle and let them talk. The mental health bonfire was the first of its kind in the country. It began at Lilayi Lodge in Lusaka and has since travelled as far as Mwandi in Western Province.
Two kinds of care
In people's homes
Patrick trained at Ndola College of Nursing and has spent his career at patients' bedsides rather than on a ward: live-in care, post-surgery recovery, elderly and chronic care, mothers and newborns. He runs his own home nursing practice across Lusaka and works part-time at Pendleton Children's Clinic.
In the open
Through radio, television, schools, churches and the bonfire itself, he works to make anxiety, depression and stress ordinary things to talk about. He runs youth programmes, men's dialogues and community outreach with partners from Scotland, the Ministry of Health and Rotary clubs in Zambia.
On air
Patrick takes the conversation to national television and radio so that the families who never make it to a bonfire still hear it.
Featured by the Zambia Daily Mail, ZNBC and Diamond TV.
Why he does it
“As a boy I stammered so badly I could not finish a word without tapping myself. People laughed. Learning to speak in front of my school is where all of this began.”Patrick, on growing up in Kamatipa, Kitwe
Work with Patrick
Talks, panels, television and radio, podcasts, workshops, campaigns and partnerships. Or nursing care for someone at home.