Dr silas IYAKAREMYE, Rwandan Diaspora member in Belgium, is willing to be part in Government efforts to fight against the Mental health illnesses.

Silas born and raised in Rwanda in a family that cultivated and reared livestock as a way of he was a renowned Assistant Medical Psychiatrist stationed at CARAES in Ndera life before leaving for Belgium in 1987.

When he arrived in Belgium, he enrolled for his university education in three different phases. The first phase involved head treatment of mainly children, with much emphasis on their education and usage of the head.

Second phase part, it was clinical psychology and later sat for his degree course in family science and sexuality where he got knowledge about social relationships between people and homes. In that period, he was also working part time since 1993.

In 1997, he begun coming back to his mother land at least every three months to practice his profession.

Dr. Silas Iyakaremye in his office in kigali

 Among his qualifications are fighting mental disturbances among children and those who cannot read and write due to mental illnesses.

It is under these reasons that migration for Development in Africa (MIDA) through RDGN invited Dr. Iyakaremye to come and offer support through treating these vulnerable children.

For all these years that he has come to work in Rwanda, it is as if he was specializing in one single area of expertise. Then he got an idea to expand his field of expertise in mental health studies.

Now he has drawn up a project that is set to start soon and will bring him together with other experts in this field.

Dr. Iyakaremye’s main objective of starting this project is to help Rwandese have enough information and follow up on mental health related issues especially among the medical profession.

Under this project, he intends to work with other doctors, nurses and also teachers so that the ordinary Rwandan citizen can get to know everything related to their mental health.

He also hopes that this project in the long run will have trained enough Rwandese who will be able to treat these mental illnesses and also the government will be able to promote this profession through opening branches in all universities in Rwanda to teach it.

This will help ease and stop the overwhelming number of Rwandans who have been travelling abroad for treatment. In the past week, Dr. Iyakaremye was able to talk to some ministries into funding this ambitious and important project.

On the comparison between the Rwanda before and after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, he admits that the two are incomparable!

Dr. Iyakaremye identifies the rapid development of Rwanda today on the new ways of thinking, unity and self development by Rwandans.