In a bit to relief the stress that came with COVID-19, Local Youth Corner Cameroon initiated a youth-led initiative “We-Connect: COVID-19 Trauma and Counseling Call Center” aimed at providing free psychosocial and counselling support to the population through telephone calls and SMS to victims of stress, anxiety, depression and trauma. MORE ABOUT WE-CONNECT

To benefit from this free service, the population/victim just needs to beep the numbers 654310487/690572138 and the We-Connect response team (counselors) immediately calls back to provide counselling to victims suffering either from stress, anxiety, depression or trauma as a result of COVID-19. The team is on standby from Monday to Sunday (8:am to 6 pm), ready to render services to the community.

 »We-Connect » is not only limited to COVID-19 because we have counsellors from different fields of the society. For example, Sone-Ngose Florence one of our counsellors at the call Center also provides counselling to trauma resulting from domestic violence, education and Internally Displaced People etc.  »This call center has as aim to help people navigate through difficult moments” she noted.

Presently, We-Connect has been able to counsel close to 100 people directly and more indirectly. This is a great number taking into consideration that our Cameroonian context is not familiar with the counselling culture but many have slowly started embracing it as days go by. “We follow-up with anyone when giving out counselling to ensure that we help them go through the trauma healing phase till they are completely healed. At the end, many are happy and have expressed appreciation and are surprised to see people who genuinely care about them who are not their family members.” said Wenbe Raoul of We-Connect.

At We-Connect Call Center, we advise the population not to give-up because this trauma and pressure will pass as time changes. Also, people should learn to speak-up, a problem shared is a problem half-solved, that is why we are spreading the culture of counselling. Not to forget, we sensitise the population to respect every barrier measures put in place by WHO and the government to prevent the spread of the virus.