London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

My name is Joan Enjema. I'm a Cameroonian and I'm a medical doctor. I'm the Founder of Chazona Mental Health and Wellbeing Organization in Cameroon, and Country Representative for Attune Media Labs, a mental health organisation run by a US-based NGO. I work in collaboration with the Cameroonian Ministry of Health and our implementation partner, Care and Health Programs.

Before any of that, I was a doctor with a question I kept coming back to.

Working in Cameroon, I saw how limited mental health services were, especially for people living outside urban areas. The treatment gap was significant. I wanted to understand whether it could be closed, and if so, how.

That question led me to the master's programme in Global Mental Health delivered by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and King’s College London. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it turned out to be broader and more practical than I had anticipated. Connecting with people from diverse backgrounds and different cultural settings opened up ways of thinking I hadn't come across before. Completing an internship with the Friendship Bench gave me real exposure to how community-based mental health support can work in practice.

Combined with the research skills I gained throughout the programme, that experience helped shape the work I do today.

Coming home and putting what I learned into practice has been the greatest privilege of all. The gap is still there. But so is the question, and now I feel there are more ways to help answer it.

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