LOME, Togo, 27 February 2026 -/African Media Agency(AMA)/ – The Bluemind Foundation announces that its Founder and President, Marie Alix De Putter, has been selected to join the Praxis Africa Accelerator, an internationally recognized ecosystem supporting founders committed to building organizations that change systems, not just outcomes.
Praxis brings together entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who view enterprises and organizations not merely as economic instruments but as architectures capable of sustainably transforming social systems. Rooted in a tradition of rigorous ethical and spiritual reflection, the ecosystem supports leaders for whom faith is an inner discipline in service of the common good.
This selection comes at a moment of strategic acceleration for the Bluemind Foundation, a pioneer of an innovative community-based mental health model deployed in Francophone Africa, notably in Togo, Cameroon, and Côte d’Ivoire.
A SYSTEMIC APPROACH TO MENTAL HEALTH
French-Cameroonian, Marie-Alix De Putter has developed over the years a thesis that has become central to her work: mental health is health; it is a social, cultural, and political infrastructure. Her work raises a crucial question of public governance: what becomes of a society when psychological suffering remains invisible, underfunded, and politically marginalized?
From this inquiry, she founded the Bluemind Foundation and designed innovative community-based interventions that bring care to where trust already exists, build bridges with public systems, and make mental health legitimate, measurable, and fundable.
The Heal by Hair program, which trains hairdressers as mental health ambassadors, exemplifies this socially rooted engineering, designed from the outset for institutional integration.
In less than five years:
- Over 300,000 women have received early support;
- Public campaigns have reached more than 350 million people;
- Strategic partnerships have been established with universities, governments, and international institutions;
- A scientific evaluation protocol, supported by the Development Innovation Fund, is currently underway in Togo
INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION AND A NEW PHASE OF STRUCTURING
Joining the Praxis program represents international recognition of the model developed by the Bluemind Foundation.
It will strengthen governance structures before scaling, deepen sustainable funding and public integration mechanisms, and embed the Foundation within an international network of impact funders, granting access to patient capital aligned with its mission. At the same time, it will enhance coherence between organizational culture, performance, and institutional accountability.
The Foundation is preparing for regional scale-up, with an ambitious multi-country impact goal by 2030: • 5,000 trained hairdresser-ambassadors;
- 3,000 active community hubs ;
- Over 5 million women and youth with structured access to mental health support. To meet the extensive needs in West and Central Africa, the Bluemind Foundation is entering a new phase of capital structuring for broader deployment, combining philanthropic funding, institutional partnerships, and sustainable public integration mechanisms.
From Lomé (Togo), the Foundation is structuring an African model designed for the realities of the continent and the world, with a clear mission: to make care accessible to everyone, everywhere, every day.
A UNIQUE VOICE IN CARE GOVERNANCE
Marie-Alix de Putter’s path was forged by an experience of devastating personal loss. While four months pregnant, she lost her husband to assassination. That rupture became the lens through which she understood everything that followed: when care systems are absent or inaccessible, suffering is never private—it becomes economic, institutional, and political.
Her approach combines systemic design, scientific rigor, strategic storytelling, and institutional negotiation. An author with three Master’s degrees and an Executive MBA, trained at Harvard Business School and Oxford, Marie-Alix de Putter regularly speaks in academic, economic, and political arenas on public health, leadership, and organizational transformation.
Her leadership has been recognized as a Desmond Tutu Fellow (AFLI), Best Woman Leader in Africa (AIFA), one of the 30 Most Innovative People in Africa (Quartz), and with inclusion in the Biographical Dictionary of French Protestants. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Le Monde, BBC, The Guardian, Vogue, Jeune Afrique, Der Spiegel, and other major international media.
A STRUCTURING MILESTONE
“If redemption were a spectrum, Praxis would sit at its most demanding edge. I enter the inaugural cohort of the Praxis Africa Accelerator with gratitude and gravity, aware that as impact grows, responsibility deepens. At a pivotal moment for the Bluemind Foundation, Praxis strengthens not only our strategy but also our internal architecture—the moral and organizational discipline necessary to scale without diluting meaning and values. This important milestone belongs to every Blueminder who engages, often away from the headlines, where systems are fragile and the cost of inaction is measured in (young) lives.” – Marie-Alix de Putter, President and Founder, Bluemind Foundation
This selection marks a key step in the Bluemind Foundation’s international positioning and confirms its ambition: to to embed African community-based mental health models — culturally legitimate, scientifically evaluated, and economically viable — into the institutions that shape public life.
Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) on behalf of Bluemind Fondation
About Bluemind Fondation
The Bluemind Foundation is a pioneering non-profit mental health organization that integrates care into everyday spaces, starting with hair salons, turning everyday spaces into genuine lifelines. It empowers local communities across Africa and beyond through innovative, scalable, cost-effective, evidence-based solutions that change lives where care is most needed. The mission of the Bluemind Foundation is to bring hope, dignity, and mental well-being to everyone, everywhere, every day.
For more information about the Bluemind Foundation and its initiatives: X, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
CONTACTS
+228 99 22 00 87
welcome@bluemindfoundation.org
www.bluemindfoundation.org
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