If you've enjoyed discourse on this podcast about the barefoot doctor approach, community-based and culturally-relevant mental health initiatives and disability justice, as well as how ritual and spiritual literacy helps weave a stronger collective nervous system and increases community resilience, then you need to read, The Friendship Bench: How Fourteen Grandmothers Inspired a Mental Health Revolution by Dr.Dixon Chibanda. It's about a mental health program of elder lay counsellors who deliver mental health support from neighbourhood park benches, and the 100+ published studies on its efficacy in measurable improvements to individual patients and public health.

Dr.Dixon Chibanda is a medical doctor, a practicing psychiatrist, and a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as well as at the University of Zimbabwe. He is also director of the African Mental Health Research Initiative (AMARI). H is TEDx Talk about the Friendship Bench has over 3 million views.

Referenced in this episode

The Friendship Bench: How Fourteen Grandmothers Inspired a Mental Health Revolution

FriendshipBench.org

Friendship Bench-in-a-Box

Dixon's socials and podcasts:

Instagram and FriendshipBenchGlobal Insta
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube/Podcast
TikTok
LinkedIn

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