Founder's Note
Building a Pan-African Future Where Youth Mental Health Is Foundational
I encountered the same quiet crisis twice in my life. First, as a young person navigating emotional pain I had no name for, and then years later, standing in front of a lecture hall, watching brilliant young minds carry the same unspoken weight.
As a lecturer and researcher, I saw it clearly: young people were not struggling because they were weak. They were struggling because the systems around them had failed them entirely. Gross misinformation had distorted their understanding of their own minds. Stigma had silenced them before they could ask for help. And even for those brave enough to seek support, resources were either unavailable or too costly to access. The gap was not just in knowledge. It was in systems, in policy, in political will.
Those three realities, the information gap, the access gap, and the systemic gap, became the founding architecture of MHYI. They are why we centre awareness creation, access to services, and policy advocacy in everything we do. And they are why we have worked persistently to translate grassroots realities into government action. Our longstanding partnerships with the Federal Ministry of Youth Development, the Federal Ministry of Health, and other MDAs are not coincidental. They are the fruit of a deliberate conviction that lasting change must be built into systems, not just delivered through programmes.
That conviction produced Embrace Your Mind, a mental health guide for young people developed in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Youth Development, the first government-recognised mental health guide of its kind for Nigerian citizens. It is one proof point of what becomes possible when advocacy is consistent and relationships are built with integrity.
Walking into orphanages, IDP camps, schools, and PWD communities taught us early that no single actor can close these gaps alone. Our growth has been shaped as much by the CSOs and government bodies we have partnered with as by the programmes we have run, because we have always believed that reaching the margins requires refusing to go alone.
Building a Pan-African Future
Nigeria is where we are rooted. Africa is where we are headed. The partnerships and systems we are building here are the blueprint for what we intend to replicate across the continent, through ECOWAS, the African Union, and every framework that shapes the futures of African youth. Our vision is a continent where young people are mentally empowered, resilient, and fully supported to thrive.
We invite government, private sector, educators, faith institutions, and youth leaders to co-design and reform the systems that failed my generation and are failing theirs.
Millions of young people are paying the price of our silence. It is time to build differently.
Lucy Enangha Abeng
Lucy Enangha Abeng
Founder and Executive Director,
Mental Health for Youth Initiative
