Over half a decade ago, emotional intelligence expert/career coach, Bolawa Beracha, was wrongly accused. That made her depressed for a long time. The only thing that came to her mind during those trying period was to end her life.
“I would say to myself, ‘what was the point living?’ I have lost my job and my marriage that I have spent all my time building, so life became worthless to me. The only thing that came to my mind during that period was to kill myself. Afterall, if I die, everything will end.
“This is what depression does. It gives you hopelessness and no reason to live. At that stage in my life, it became glaring to me, why someone, who is very successful in life, would want to end it,” she revealed.
With the help of God and mental health expert, Beracha was able to pull through. “God made me realised that I was selfish to end my life. He has given me a purpose in life and if I end it, that purpose would not be fulfilled. Those words stuck to my head for a long time,” she stated.
Depression is a major contributor to the overall global burden of disease and can lead to suicide. The World Health Organisation revealed that over 700,000 people die due to suicide every year.
As a survivor, Beracha was moved to make a difference. She has experienced it and her goal is to ensure that no one goes through it.
To start with, Beracha established an initiative called War Against Depression Initiative and Bolawa Beracha Mind Hub International, for the sole purpose of creating and promoting mental health awareness by exposing the factors that work for and against it, with a major focus on depression.
“The reason I am focusing on depression is the fact that everybody in Nigeria is depressed. Everybody is going through depression in one way or the other, and it is not our fault. For instance, the naira scarcity and the closure of banks recently, could make one depressed. But we need to build resilience to fight the depression. That is where I come in. I have dedicated my life to helping Nigerians to manage depression,” she said.
Explaining further, she revealed that, depression starts from the thought, adding that, “Everything we do in life starts from your thought, then your thoughts propel that emotion, that makes you depressed.”
As a life resilience coach, Beracha recently organised a conference that unveils the measures to tackle depression.
“The next step is to continue the war against depression by organising summits to train people on how they can manage their thoughts. We plan to go to places of worship, market places and offices to help people manage depression.
“We are also visiting schools, because report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) revealed that psychosocial distress and poor mental health afflicted far too many children, adding that in 21 countries, roughly one in five young people aged 15-24 said they often feel depressed or have little interest in doing things.
“A lot of people are keeping quiet; people don’t trust any more; they now feel it is their problem, so they need to tackle it themselves. We plan to revert that by creating a safe avenue or a platform, where people can speak up. We will be visiting universities, popular mall, place of worship and market places. We want to have one on one consultation with people and help them deal with whatever challenges they may be going through. The goal is to reduce depression drastically,” she revealed.
Biography
Beracha started her career as an account manager, Computer Warehouse Group Plc from September 2007 to March 2011, then moved to Business Connexion, as an account manager from April 2011 to April 2014. She later moved to Novas System Limited from May 2014 to November 2019, and then finally became the principal consultant at Mindscape Partners Limited.
She had her Ordinary National Diploma, Mass Communication/Media Studies from The Polytechnic, Ibadan and Bachelor of Science, Human Resources Management from Lagos State University.
Presently, she is a consultant per excellence, a certified transformational life coach, career coach and emotional intelligence expert.
She has the passion to help humans discover their potentials and maximize it to the fullest. This drives her to coach people on how to use their emotions to achieve success both personally and professionally.
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