**7. Intervention results**

We made two assessments of our intervention. In September 2007, 15 months after the beginning of our intervention the number of children showing disorders had decreased considerably. 74.20% of the children showed a positive mental health. By linking this rate to the 281 children suffering at the beginning, one noted an improvement rate of 89.32%. The children had a better health condition; they were dynamic and jovial. They carried with ease their activities despite would-be internal conflicts. Concerning this, they had implemented a system of justice relying on the oldest among them. Those who went back to school had good academic results.

The breakdown of the children in line with persistent symptoms after our intervention appears in table 4 below.


Table 4. The proportion of children showing symptoms of mental health problems 15 months after the initiation of our intervention

Thus, residual symptoms were dominated by behavioral disorder, insomnia and headaches. None of the children showed signs of palpitations, fits of crying, suffocation, loss of appetite, logorrhea, or suicide.

After the first phase of intervention, the diagnosis assessment showed:



During this 2007 September mission, we noted an improvement in social behaviors. An inter-village sport and cultural event were organized. The children presented sketches, dances and they played football. User-friendliness and brotherhood were the orders of the day.

The field agents organized also awareness campaigns on the dangers of circumcision. The topic was rather delicate because, at the same time, five girls involved in the project had

their expected involvement in psychotherapeutic work represented an extra work, as they had other activities to attend to (identification of children in need of birth certificates, HIV/AIDS awareness activities). So that, psychotherapy was necessary for a number of children, an activity based on talking with the children, proved impossible for field workers.

We made two assessments of our intervention. In September 2007, 15 months after the beginning of our intervention the number of children showing disorders had decreased considerably. 74.20% of the children showed a positive mental health. By linking this rate to the 281 children suffering at the beginning, one noted an improvement rate of 89.32%. The children had a better health condition; they were dynamic and jovial. They carried with ease their activities despite would-be internal conflicts. Concerning this, they had implemented a system of justice relying on the oldest among them. Those who went back to school had

The breakdown of the children in line with persistent symptoms after our intervention

Behavioral disorder (theft, running away, aggressiveness, instability) 26 07.47% Insomnia 13 03.91% Anguish/ Fear 10 03.04% Headaches 12 03.56% Emotional disturbance 10 03.04% Amnesiac disturbance 4 01.20% Enuresis 5 01.52% Sadness 1 00.30% Isolation/withdrawn attitude 3 00.90% Delirium/ Hallucinations 2 00.60%

Table 4. The proportion of children showing symptoms of mental health problems 15

After the first phase of intervention, the diagnosis assessment showed:





Thus, residual symptoms were dominated by behavioral disorder, insomnia and headaches. None of the children showed signs of palpitations, fits of crying, suffocation, loss of

During this 2007 September mission, we noted an improvement in social behaviors. An inter-village sport and cultural event were organized. The children presented sketches, dances and they played football. User-friendliness and brotherhood were the orders of the

The field agents organized also awareness campaigns on the dangers of circumcision. The topic was rather delicate because, at the same time, five girls involved in the project had

**7. Intervention results** 

good academic results.

appears in table 4 below.

months after the initiation of our intervention


appetite, logorrhea, or suicide.

day.

retired in the bush to be excised. A meeting was organized and the matron responsible for that activity empowered us to talk to the girls. When we asked them about their motivation for genital mutilation and pointed that the Government had prohibited such practices, and that some were already mothers (like two of them), one of them argued that excision favors marriage because a non excised woman is a source of evil to her husband. Even if they lose some sensibility during coitus and their libido will be negatively affected, excision is worth being carried out. Our questions seemed to disturb some of the girls, and a dispute even cropped up.

Before such a practice, the field agents were powerless and villagers barely listened to them. One of them explained laughing that all the talks made by the officer was meaningless because if the woman is not excised she could bring evil to her husband (confirming thus the opinion expressed by the young girl). What could be added if ancestral beliefs are so strong?

At the final assessment of our intervention in August 2008, only 58 children were assessed. Many were the children who had left the area before the project came to an end without an assessment of the impact of the actions undertaken and without a real reintegration. It was hoped that any improvement in the mental health of the children would permit the children to view their future with hope and resume normal life activities for survival after the war.

The children who better rebuilt their life were those who returned to school or those who learned sewing: the young girls of *Pantrokin* who enlisted in the sewing project built their own sewing shop; they bought new machines and were receiving customers. One of the boys, Joel, who demonstrated leadership capacities, was handling alone truck farming and breeding. As for the other boys, they had, either left the village or abandoned the project.

In *Ké-bouébo* and in *Béoué*, breeding and farming were abandoned. Only the vestiges of a promising project remained (abandoned hen houses, fallow ground).

The overall appreciation of that mission is the following:

In general, the children were better off on the psychopathological point of view though of them showed a reactivation of psychiatric symptoms (psychotic disturbances, depressions).

The community volunteers seemed to have given up their commitment toward these children possibly for a variety of understandable reasons including lack of funds (therefore no salary),lack of food donation and perhaps because the NGO local agents were no longer there to provide the services they did before.
