By Charlotte Oloya
This May, the global Mental Health Awareness Month theme asks a simple question that turns out to be quietly profound: What does a good day look like — for you, and for your community?
For a mother in Kampala, a good day might mean waking up with enough energy to cook breakfast, walk her children to school, and go to work without the weight of invisible dread. For a woman in a refugee settlement in Adjumani, it might mean laughing, genuinely laughing, for the first time in months.
For a young man who has spent years cycling in and out of hopelessness, it might simply mean believing there will be another good day. For a student preparing for university, it might be the ability to concentrate.
For an employee, it might mean showing up fully. For an employer, it might mean a workforce present not only in body, but also in mind.
These are not abstract aspirations. They are the measure of what mental health care makes possible. More good days together means investing in the mental wellbeing of our population so that the returns show up in a more productive workforce, stronger families, and a more resilient society.
In Uganda today, far too many people are not experiencing enough of these days.
Earlier this year, the National Planning Authority formally declared something those working in mental health have long recognised: Uganda is facing a mental health crisis.
The State of Uganda Population Report 2025, launched under the theme Mental Health: A Silent Emergency, found that approximately 24.2 percent of adults and 22.9 percent of children are affected by mental health conditions, yet fewer than one in ten people who need care receive appropriate support.
The numbers are staggering. Facility-reported mental health cases increased by 71 percent between 2021 and 2024. The monetary value of disability-adjusted life years lost to mental disorders rose from Shs283 billion in 2000 to Shs2.96 trillion in 2023.
Under a business-as-usual scenario, total economic losses are projected to rise from $1.1 billion in 2024 to $4.5 billion by 2040.
As Minister of Health Dr Jane Ruth Aceng noted at the report’s launch, “Mental health is not just a clinical issue; it is a developmental issue affecting human capital, service delivery, and socio-economic resilience.”
Uganda’s ambition to grow its economy tenfold by 2040 will not be achieved while a significant share of its population carries unaddressed psychological suffering.
The solution does not lie in building isolated specialised clinics that most Ugandans cannot easily reach or afford. The most scalable and effective response is care embedded in communities — delivered through decentralised services in local health centres, schools, and trusted community spaces, and through group-based, lay-delivered talk therapies rooted in the culture, language, and daily realities of the people they serve.
Mental health is never experienced in isolation. It is felt in relationships. A person treated for depression does not only recover for themselves — their children’s lives improve, neighbours notice the change, and communities begin to shift.
They show up differently at the borehole, in the market, at the school gate, and at work. They become, once again, full participants in community life.
When a mother recovers, her household recovers. When a neighbour heals, the community around them shifts. Good days, when they come, ripple outward through families, local economies, schools, and generations.
This is not sentiment; it is the mechanism through which community mental health care multiplies its own impact.
The “together” in this year’s theme is not decorative. It extends far beyond the health sector. Mental health is an education issue, a workplace issue, and a finance issue.
It demands action from schools, churches, mosques, employers, community leaders, and government alike. If Uganda is to achieve its ambition of growing its economy tenfold by 2040, three priorities must be acted on now:
- Fund the Integration. Fully finance the government’s commitment to integrate mental health into primary healthcare. A commitment without a budget is a wish.
- Pass the Guidelines. Swiftly finalise and implement the operational guidelines for the Mental Health Act 2018. Uganda’s Mental Health Act was a landmark, but good laws alone do not produce good days.
- Claim Cross-Sector Ownership. Mental health is not the Ministry of Health’s responsibility alone. It requires active policy and cultural shifts from employers, educators, religious leaders, and financial planners. Every sector that touches Ugandan lives has a role to play.
What would a good day look like for the woman in your neighbourhood who has been struggling in silence? For the young employee whose performance has been declining for reasons no one has asked about? For the student who is physically present in class but absent in every other sense?
Mental Health Awareness Month ends on May 31. The crisis it highlights will not. Uganda has already named its emergency. What remains is action — with the seriousness, resources, and collective will that more good days for all Ugandans require.
Charlotte Oloya is Deputy Country Director at StrongMinds Uganda, a non-profit providing community-based group therapy for depression across Sub-Saharan Africa.