My lowest point in my mental health was when I first started working with Genocide survivors, hearing their stories, seeing what had happened in Rwanda, at the memorial sites that I visited, speaking with Genocide Survivors, …those events traumatized me and broke me down emotionally.

And so, it is from that experience my wife and I established Solid Minds Counselling Clinic in 2015 to create a safe place for people to come and get professional psychological support. I remember my mother encouraging me to come back to my job and she used very strong words.

My mother directly said: “How can you do what you like and you are running away from it? And, what is your next plan?” She said this because when I was growing up I told her that I wanted to study social work in order to do work with needy and vulnerable people, and contribute to making life easier and relieving pain for those in need and here I was running away from my job.

So, I made up my mind to come back at my job. I came the same, I was still emotionally broken down but I had this strength in me that came from the words of my mother. I was able to get out of my burnout or traumatic experiences through the support of professional psychologists. So, I could occasionally go and get help on self-care and so forth in a way to be able to look after my mental well-being and be able to support the other people in a better way.