The Best of Both Worlds

For the past two years, the Office of Transformative Global Health (OTGH) has been working on a Grand Challenges Canada project to build capacity of spiritual leaders (Catholic, Protestant and Vodou) in Haiti. The goal is to promote a culture of mental health care among informal care practitioners by blending the best of both worlds: Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and cultural practice. You can read more about the project phases here:

Part 1: Laying the groundwork through relationship building

Part 2: Information sharing and cultural adaptation process

Part 3: Using creative arts to train Haitian spiritual leaders on therapy for “crooked” thoughts

As we enter the final phase of the project, we’re faced with these important questions:

How can we best support our community partners after the project ends?
How can we continue to foster learning with ongoing resources?
How can we improve the accessibility of mental health information?

Despite its pervasiveness in Haiti, Vodou is highly marginalized, with limited public recognition and socioeconomic support. This paradoxical reality poses significant barriers in access to care for those within the community. The commitment of this community presents an important opportunity in building capacity among those most in need and with the widest potential reach.

Our Vodou community partners have expressed great determination to sustain momentum after the project comes to a close.  In support, the OTGH wants to ensure the Vodou community has the tools needed to continue learning in a way that is congruent with cultural traditions and practices. We plan to transform the CBT manual (culturally adapted in an earlier project phase) into a more engaging and interactive educational resource specifically geared to local contexts.

As we’ve learned throughout the intervention, storytelling has been a consistent and driving force with our Vodou partners. Building on this finding, we plan to harness the value of storytelling as tool for information sharing by creating an educational film that blends real stories about Vodou treatment practices with lessons about mental health and therapy. The films will be shared with a number of lakous (supportive Vodou collectives) and other Vodou temples in Haiti. Accompanying the film will be a set of reflection questions that guide learning and stimulate discussion.