Community outreach, informal discussions, and home visits: local exchanges on exclusive breastfeeding and mental health
Between February and June 2026, the SPRINT-Sen project organized community forums and home visits at its four project sites: Gaol, Taïba, Ourossogui, and Soubalo, in Matam. These activities constitute the outreach component of the community intervention. They complement forum theater sessions, which are used to introduce topics to a broad audience, and radio programs, which help disseminate messages beyond the sites directly covered by the project.
The community discussions create a space for collective dialogue within neighborhoods, villages, and hamlets. Home visits then allow for the same topics to be revisited on an individual basis, taking into account each woman’s situation and her family environment.
Community Discussion Sessions: A Space for Collective Dialogue
In neighborhoods, villages, and hamlets, the discussion sessions bring together pregnant and breastfeeding women, husbands, mothers-in-law, and childcare providers. Community leaders and health professionals jointly facilitate these discussions using a participatory approach in which open-ended questions play a central role: these questions first allow for gathering the women’s knowledge, practices, and experiences, before providing explanations, correcting misconceptions, and answering the group’s questions.
With regard to exclusive breastfeeding, the discussions address, in particular, its definition and duration, from birth through six months : the fact that infants do not need water even in extreme heat, the benefits of breast milk for hydration, growth, and protection against certain infections, as well as the risks associated with early introduction of water, formula, or other foods. The challenges faced by mothers, such as fatigue, heat, pain, and doubts about milk supply, as well as work and household responsibilities, are also addressed, as is the role of partners and support networks in fostering breastfeeding.
The discussions also provide an opportunity to talk about mental health: defining what it encompasses, distinguishing it from mental illness, and challenging stereotypes that reduce it to “madness.” Participants discuss the causes of stress, the effects of heat on sleep, fatigue, and irritability, as well as signs of psychological distress, family support, and options for referral to healthcare providers.
Home Visits: Tailoring Messages to Each Family
Home visits extend these discussions in a more personalized setting. They are conducted by the Badjénou Gox, community liaisons, and role model mothers with pregnant and breastfeeding women. Husbands, mothers-in-law, and other household members are included in the discussions whenever possible.
During the visit, the community worker begins by listening to the family and identifying the challenges they face. He then uses the picture box to elicit reactions from those present to situations similar to their daily lives: breastfeeding in hot weather, an overwhelming workload of household chores, maternal fatigue, lack of support, or signs of stress.
The discussions aim to identify solutions tailored to the household: encouraging the mother to rest, better distributing tasks, supporting continued breastfeeding, recognizing signs of distress, and seeking care from a health professional when necessary. The community worker relies on a visit form and the principles of motivational interviewing: open-ended questions, active listening, paraphrasing, and non-judgmental communication. Their role remains one of raising awareness and providing guidance, not therapeutic care.
Empowerment and sustainability are at the heart of our project: the tools developed with community workers are intended to continue being used long after the project ends. A set of five images, each of which was approved before printing, allows visitors to choose, during a home visit, the one that best matches the household’s situation; the roadmaps, in turn, structure the flow of the discussions to ensure that the same messages are conveyed.
