GLM TEAM 
By Monde Twala, Senior Vice President & GM, Paramount Africa and Lead, BET International
In my role at Paramount Africa, I’ve spent years shaping content that entertains, inspires and reflects youth culture. But there are moments when entertainment alone is not enough. When what’s required is a reckoning with the pain, pressure, and emotional realities that too many young people across our continent are forced to carry quietly.
That’s what The People vs AND Mental Health is. Not just a documentary, but a mirror. One held up by young Africans themselves, asking us urgently, to see what we’ve ignored for too long.
The Fourth Film. The Loudest One.
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This is the final instalment of The People VS series of documentaries that began with The People vs The Rainbow Nation The People vs The People and The People vs Patriarchy. Directed by the brilliant Lebogang Rasethaba, each film was a chapter in youth truth-telling: unfiltered, unapologetic, and long overdue.
But this one, without taking anything away from the others, feels different.
According to Jörns-Presentati et al. A systematic review. PLOS ONE, 16(5), e0251689 (2021), 1 in 5 African adolescents live with a mental health disorder, with the most common issues being emotional and behavioural problems (40.8%), anxiety (29.8%), depression (26.9%), post-traumatic stress disorder (21.5%), and suicidal ideation (20.8%).
The People vs AND Mental Health doesn’t shout. It listens. And what it hears is heavy: stories of depression, anxiety, trauma, and emotional exhaustion, shared by young people who have lived these experiences, often in silence.
We didn’t commission this project to tick a CSR box. We backed it because stories like these save lives. They name what too many have been told to hide. They show that vulnerability is not weakness – it’s survival.
Edutainment That Doesn’t Numb
At MTV Base, we’ve always been known for rhythm, vibe and cultural fluency. But Content for Change; our social impact initiative has always pushed us to go further.
With this series of documentaries we’ve leaned into edutainment: storytelling that doesn’t just inform but transforms. It’s a format designed for a generation that is both media-savvy and emotionally alert. Young audiences can spot the difference between a message and a movement and what they’re demanding is authenticity.
The People AND Mental Health doesn’t offer neat solutions. It creates space for discomfort, for honesty, for connection.
This is what edutainment looks like when it refuses to gloss over the truth. It holds space, builds language, and normalises what has been treated as taboo.
The Digital Mind Is Still a Mind
The film also connects something too often treated separately: mental health and digital wellbeing.
Young people are not only dealing with pressure offline, but they’re also absorbing an avalanche of online expectations, comparisons, abuse and misinformation. The rise of AI, anonymous avatars, and algorithmic loneliness means emotional distress isn’t just private anymore. It’s programmed into the platforms we scroll through daily.
That’s why we extended our commitment through initiatives like the Room of Safety, in partnership with MTN. Because online safety isn’t just a tech issue, it’s a mental health issue.
We need to teach digital resilience alongside digital access. We need to empower youth to navigate their digital lives with boundaries, emotional agency, and the tools to protect their wellbeing.
From Story to System
When The People AND Mental Health screened at the Soweto Film Festival, it didn’t just spark applause -it sparked dialogue.
It created intergenerational moments: mothers and sons having their first real conversations about emotional wellbeing. Teachers, creatives, and clinicians sitting together to unpack how we move from stories to systems.
That is the power of radical, locally grounded storytelling. It doesn’t seek validation. It seeks change.
Our films are not designed to provide all the answers. But they ask the questions that demand better action, from our families, our institutions, and our platforms.
A Closing Reflection
As someone who grew up in a township where mental illness was either mocked or misunderstood, I know what silence can do. And as someone who has been entrusted with shaping cultural and media narratives at scale over the years, I also know what storytelling can repair.
This work – ours, yours, all of ours, is not about pity or applause. It’s about equity. Visibility. Access. Survival.
At MTV Base, our mission has always been to amplify young people rather than speak on their behalf. The content we create is content that centres their voices, validates their realities, and ignites dialogue across the continent.
In the face of a growing crisis, mental health remains chronically under-resourced.
Despite this high burden of mental health challenges, a significant treatment gap persists, driven by inadequate staffing, minimal budget allocations (most countries spend less than 1% of their health budgets on mental health), and pervasive stigma and discrimination. – World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa, 2024
Mental health isn’t a moment it’s a mindset. And mindsets don’t shift through campaigns alone. They shift through culture, through what we platform, what we normalise, and what we pass down.
It takes space.
It takes truth.
It takes all of us.
For young people, parents, or caregivers seeking support, MTN’s Child Online Protection portal offers a growing ecosystem of help including access to reporting tools for harmful content, digital literacy tips, guidance on cyberbullying, and links to emotional wellbeing resources. It’s not just a website – it’s a safety net.
Explore the support tools here: https://www.mtn.com/child-online-protection/
Because storytelling matters. And support systems save lives.
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