Peter Badimak YARO

I am the Executive Director of BasicNeeds-Ghana. A development worker of two decades of experience, and a leading mental health advocate in Ghana. I have substantial working experience with not-for-profit non-government organisations in Ghana and West Africa, where I have worked in some of the remote and hard-to-reach communities, working with poor individuals, households, and communities to enhance their wellbeing. I have been working in BasicNeeds, a leading global mental health and development organisation, for the past decade now. I have dedicated my work efforts to improving the situation of women and men, girls and boys with mental disorders. I have worked to promote community mental health and increasing access to community-based mental health services integrated into general health care by the implementation of the model for mental health and development of BasicNeeds. This has also ensured a means to secure livelihoods for stabilised people with mental disorders and their carer-givers, and influencing public officials and institutions to be attentive to mental health issues and responsive to voice of poor and vulnerable people with mental disorders in Ghana. I continue to be active in advocacy and activities relating to the Mental Health legislation and pro-poor and inclusive programmes in Ghana, scaling up of community mental health services, strengthening capacity of service users and care-givers support groups and general human rights issues. I am a dynamic individual who works well with others in multidisciplinary, multicultural, and multi-religious contexts.