Nearly 20 years ago, psychiatrist Dixon Chibanda lost one of his patients to suicide. Erica knew she needed help, and so did her family. But when she hit a crisis, she didn’t have the bus fare, equivalent to $10, to travel to the hospital where Chibanda worked.
Chibanda was devastated when he learned of Erica’s death. It motivated him to create Friendship Bench Zimbabwe, a nonprofit organization that administers talk therapy from public benches — relying largely on the wisdom of older women.
With the assistance of a team of “grandmas,” Dixon Chibanda is working to rethink and destigmatize mental health care.
Since 2016, the project has provided treatment to more than 623,000 people. Friendship Bench’s approach relies on training community health workers — residents who work for little or no pay — in basic cognitive behavioral therapy to provide counseling to those experiencing mental-health crises.
Most of its more than 3,000 trained counselors are wizened grandmothers experienced in listening to other people’s problems and offering advice, Chibanda says. Many who seek relief at the park benches, he says, are dealing with mental-health issues exacerbated by nonmedical factors, such as poverty and domestic violence, and are often reluctant to seek help.
“We’ve learned from the grandmothers, in particular, that when you lean into the story and not the diagnosis, you remove a lot of the stigma,” Chibanda says. “When you use local, indigenous terms to navigate the therapy, you also remove a lot of the stigma.”
For example, rather than talking about depression, Friendship Bench counselors use the word kufungisisa, which in Shona means “thinking too much.”
Participants receive four to six therapy sessions, during which they learn about problem-solving techniques, activities to improve their mood, and other tools to address anxiety, depression, and other common mental-health issues. After that, they can join support groups with others who have gone through the sessions or they may be referred to a mental-health professional, Chibanda says.
Friendship Bench Zimbabwe is now an international phenomenon. The organization has collaborated with the Zimbabwean government to expand to all 10 of the country’s provinces and partnered with international institutions, such as the World Health Organization. Through U.S. nonprofits and universities, Chibanda has expanded the program to New Orleans, New York City, and Washington, D.C. He aims to bring it to El Salvador next.
Much of Friendship Bench’s expansion has happened thanks to a gift from MacKenzie Scott in 2022 — the organization has not disclosed the amount — and a $2 million grant from Rippleworks in 2023.
