Speaker 1: Pushkin hay Slight Changed listeners. It's Maya. Since May is
Speaker 1: mental health Awareness month, we're revisiting some of our favorite
Speaker 1: conversations with scientists about how we can live healthier, happier lives.
Speaker 1: This episode features the undeniable power of grandmothers to heal
Speaker 1: our communities. Since we're a few days away from Mother's Day,
Speaker 1: you might want to share this with a grandmother or
Speaker 1: two that you know in your life. We'll be back
Speaker 1: with our new season soon, but in the meantime, I
Speaker 1: really hope you enjoyed this conversation. And a quick note.
Speaker 1: In this episode, Dixon and I talk about a patient
Speaker 1: who struggles with depression, and there is a brief mention
Speaker 1: of suicide. It's not graphic or detailed, but in the
Speaker 1: spirit of taking care of our mental health, I wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure you knew that upfront, so you can
Speaker 1: do what you need to do to take care of
Speaker 1: yourself while listening. If you or someone else you know
Speaker 1: is struggling, We've included some resources in our show notes.
Speaker 2: In Zimbabwe, let alone the whole of Africa, you're looking
Speaker 2: at a ratio of one psychiatrist to about one and
Speaker 2: a half million people.
Speaker 1: That's doctor Dixon Chabanda, a psychiatrist in Zimbabwe. He knew
Speaker 1: people in his country desperately needed access to mental health
Speaker 1: care but weren't getting it, and even though Dixon felt
Speaker 1: daunted by the magnitude of the problem, he was determined
Speaker 1: to try and find a solution.
Speaker 2: My initial thoughts were to work with trained nurses and
Speaker 2: doctors at the hospital, but I was immediately told know
Speaker 2: the nurses and the doctors are are extremely busy. They
Speaker 2: have to deal with people who are living with HIV,
Speaker 2: they have to deal with people who are coming in
Speaker 2: with my hilarry and all sort of other things. They
Speaker 2: just don't have the time to do this mental health stuff.
Speaker 1: Since health professionals were fully tied up with other work,
Speaker 1: Dixon was forced to look elsewhere, and so in two
Speaker 1: thousand and five, he turned to a rather unorthodox group
Speaker 1: for help. On today's episode, how you can vastly improve
Speaker 1: access to mental health care when you put grandmothers on
Speaker 1: the case. I'm Maya Shunker and this is a slight
Speaker 1: change of plans, a show about who we are and
Speaker 1: who we become in the face of a big change.
Speaker 1: Dixon and I started our conversation by talking about what
Speaker 1: drew him to the field of psychiatry. He had initially
Speaker 1: wanted to become a pediatrician, but then something happened in
Speaker 1: medical school that deeply affected him. A classmate of his,
Speaker 1: who outwardly seemed stable and cheerful, took his own life.
Speaker 1: This came as a total shock to Dixon, and it
Speaker 1: motivated him to reassess how he wanted to spend his
Speaker 1: time as a doctor.
Speaker 2: And then there were a couple of other things. You know,
Speaker 2: I grew up in a family where my parents they
Speaker 2: didn't really have a wonderful marriage, you know, if I
Speaker 2: could put it that way, And when my parents divorced,
Speaker 2: that really affected me psychologically emotionally. I think I must
Speaker 2: have had childhood depression for a very long time, and
Speaker 2: no one really knew and I didn't know either, you know,
Speaker 2: So that all of these kind of things, and then
Speaker 2: going to high school and being bullied, and then you know,
Speaker 2: feeling completely out of place. So quite a number of
Speaker 2: events which had an emotional or traumatic effect on me,
Speaker 2: I believe contributed to that final decision for me to
Speaker 2: get into mental health and psychiatry. The thinking was, you know,
Speaker 2: if I can understand more about mental health and mental illness.
Speaker 2: I'll be able to heal myself, you know, And that's
Speaker 2: actually what it's all about, you know, It's really about
Speaker 2: finding a way of making myself a better person.
Speaker 1: So you end up deciding to become a psychiatrist, and
Speaker 1: you end up having a patient named Erica whose experience
Speaker 1: inspires you to specifically work in the area of increasing
Speaker 1: access to mental health care.
Speaker 3: Do you mind sharing her story?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Erica. Erica was a twenty six year old patient
Speaker 2: of mine who I had been seeing for a good
Speaker 2: close to three years. Was initially brought to the hospital
Speaker 2: where I worked as a psychiatrist with a history of
Speaker 2: major depression. And I spent quite a lot of time
Speaker 2: with Erica and I really got to know her. And
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the things with psychiatry, when
Speaker 2: you really connect with your clients, you get to know
Speaker 2: them on a very personal level, and you know everything
Speaker 2: about their lives, because I mean, that's what mental health
Speaker 2: is all about, you know, you talk to people, you
Speaker 2: listen to people's stories, and so, you know, over the years,
Speaker 2: Erica and I had built this very strong rapport. But
Speaker 2: Erica actually lived some three hundred kilometers from where I am,
Speaker 2: and she would come and see me once every month
Speaker 2: together with her mom, you know, for review. And she'd
Speaker 2: made a lot of progress over the years. And you know,
Speaker 2: one evening, I get a call in the middle of
Speaker 2: the night from the hospital where I worked, and the
Speaker 2: er doctor you know, informs me that Erica, you know,
Speaker 2: my patient, Erica, has taken an overdose, but she will
Speaker 2: be fine. But you know, they kind of think that
Speaker 2: after that she should really come over and probably get
Speaker 2: more psychiatric evaluation and attention. And you know, we agreed
Speaker 2: that that was what was going to happen, you know,
Speaker 2: as soon as she's released. But you know, Erica didn't come.
Speaker 2: When she was released from the er, they went back
Speaker 2: to the village where she lived with her mother and father.
Speaker 2: And I only got a call three weeks later from
Speaker 2: Erica's mother to tell me that Erica had had hang herself.
Speaker 2: You know, when Erica's mother phoned me to tell me
Speaker 2: what had happened, my you know, my sort of instinctive
Speaker 2: knee jerk response was to say, to Erica's mother, why
Speaker 2: didn't you bring Erica to the hospital for the review
Speaker 2: that we had talked about, you know, after she had
Speaker 2: taken that initial overdose, and it was her response really
Speaker 2: that struck me, you know, because she said, you know,
Speaker 2: we wanted to come, but we couldn't because we didn't
Speaker 2: have a bus there to come to your hospital, and
Speaker 2: that was like ten dollars, and as a result, Erica
Speaker 2: couldn't really get the help that she needed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and from what I understand, I mean, the fact
Speaker 1: Erica even had access to you already put her in
Speaker 1: a minority of people, right, just given the sheer number
Speaker 1: of psychiatrists in the area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the ratio is actually quite appalling. When you think
Speaker 2: about the statistics in terms of psychiatrists in Zimbabwe, let
Speaker 2: alone the whole of Africa. You're looking at a ratio
Speaker 2: of one psychiatrists to about one and a half million people.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, that whole story about Erica
Speaker 2: got me really thinking about my role as a psychiatrist.
Speaker 2: You know, when you're trained as a psychiatrist, you kind
Speaker 2: of see yourself working in a hospital. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: what psychiatrists do. You know, they work in hospitals. You know,
Speaker 2: we work in clinics, We deal with people, people come
Speaker 2: to us. And I started asking myself if this was
Speaker 2: really the right way of looking at my role as
Speaker 2: a psychiatrist in Africa, expecting people to come to me,
Speaker 2: and you know, I just realized that that just wasn't
Speaker 2: going to work.
Speaker 1: Erica's inability to access help when it mattered most had
Speaker 1: a profound impact on Dixon. He felt inspired to bridge
Speaker 1: this gap and access to mental health care, but wasn't
Speaker 1: sure how to do it. Then a moment of insight.
Speaker 1: Dixon was in Africa at an academic conference being run
Speaker 1: by the World Health Organization when he caught wind of
Speaker 1: a local ceremony nearby. It was a spiritual gathering where
Speaker 1: a number of people had come together to try and
Speaker 1: heal those in the community who were suffering, and Dixon
Speaker 1: immediately took note of one particular aspect of this ceremony,
Speaker 1: the prominent role elderly women played in leading it.
Speaker 2: They were really powerful, but above all, they had this
Speaker 2: amazingly profound way of conveying empathy and connecting with their subjects.
Speaker 2: That was really what struck me, and that was when
Speaker 2: I kind of realized that there was something in having
Speaker 2: an older woman who has wisdom and experience, you know,
Speaker 2: reaching out to help a young mother who is struggling
Speaker 2: with postnatal depression. You know, a young mother who is
Speaker 2: struggling with anxiety disorder, and just reaching out and establishing
Speaker 2: that connection that makes that person feel comfortable to share
Speaker 2: their story, to make them feel that sense of belonging
Speaker 2: that I am in a place where I'm being taken
Speaker 2: care of. That was really powerful.
Speaker 1: Dixon drew a lot of inspiration from observing the elderly
Speaker 1: women in that ceremony. The influence they had in the
Speaker 1: community because of their age, their wisdom, and their empathetic
Speaker 1: nature gave him an idea. Since there weren't enough mental
Speaker 1: health professionals in Zimbabwe to meet the needs of his community,
Speaker 1: Dixon thought one way to help could be to bring
Speaker 1: elderly women or grandmothers into the fold. If they could
Speaker 1: lend a compassionate ear to people who were struggling, that
Speaker 1: could give more people the support they needed. But when
Speaker 1: Dixon told his friends in the medical community about his idea,
Speaker 1: they did not share his enthusiasm.
Speaker 2: Well, the initial reaction was obviously negative. Everyone thought it
Speaker 2: just wouldn't work. Because therapy is designed to be delivered
Speaker 2: by trained therapists such as psychiatrists or clinical psychologists, and
Speaker 2: grandmothers with minimal education, just did not have the capacity
Speaker 2: to do this kind of work. So friends in the field,
Speaker 2: colleagues and other senior colleagues as well, who I looked
Speaker 2: up to, all kind of thought this wouldn't work, you know.
Speaker 2: But I guess at the back of my mind, I
Speaker 2: always had that vision of these elderly women, and also
Speaker 2: just looking at my own childhood as well. You know,
Speaker 2: I grew up in a family where the women were
Speaker 2: very strong, very powerful, but my grandmothers, you know, were literate,
Speaker 2: were educated and had a very strong contribution to the
Speaker 2: family and making this vision. So I guess that's another
Speaker 2: part of my history or my childhood that has influenced
Speaker 2: this work.
Speaker 1: Dixon did not have to wait long to test out
Speaker 1: his theory. Zimbabwe was reeling from a recent government crackdown
Speaker 1: which traumatized millions and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless.
Speaker 1: Against this backdrop, Dixon's medical supervisor implored him to double
Speaker 1: down on his existing efforts and try to find a
Speaker 1: solution to the growing mental health crisis.
Speaker 2: And at the time, I was the only psychiatrist actually
Speaker 2: working within the public health sector, you know, So my
Speaker 2: supervisor said, you need to go out there and you
Speaker 2: need to come up with something, you know, but there's
Speaker 2: no money. You know, you have to try and think
Speaker 2: of some innovative way of addressing the psychological trauma that
Speaker 2: this community is going through. And my initial thoughts were,
Speaker 2: you know, to work work with the trained nurses and
Speaker 2: doctors at the hospital. But I was immediately told no,
Speaker 2: the nurses and the doctors are are extremely busy. They
Speaker 2: have to deal with people who are living with HIV,
Speaker 2: they have to deal with people who are coming in
Speaker 2: with malaria and all sorts of other things. They just
Speaker 2: don't have the time to do this mental health stuff.
Speaker 2: But you could consider working with other, you know, non professionals,
Speaker 2: you know, and I thought, my goodness, this can't be
Speaker 2: done by non professionals, but just the thought then, you know,
Speaker 2: there are lots of community grandmothers here who have been
Speaker 2: involved in sort of outreach programs. How about I start
Speaker 2: with just fourteen grandmothers from this community and see what
Speaker 2: we can do. A part of me was also quite skeptical,
Speaker 2: but you know, when you think you're onto something, you
Speaker 2: kind of keep going, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I can also imagine therapists and doctors
Speaker 1: reacting negatively because they're thinking, I have a real degree
Speaker 1: in this. You know, I'm actually trained, and now you're
Speaker 1: telling me that grandma's can do my job for me. Like,
Speaker 1: did you hear any of that kind of response?
Speaker 2: Yes, I heard a lot of that kind of response.
Speaker 2: But you see, that's where I think, you know the
Speaker 2: problem we have with today's education, where we see everything
Speaker 2: through the lens of academia and academics, you know, particularly
Speaker 2: from the northern hemisphere, and we don't take time to
Speaker 2: look at the local indigenous knowledge and the wisdom that
Speaker 2: is inherent in every culture. I mean, one of the
Speaker 2: things that I really learned from the grandmothers is that
Speaker 2: every culture has their amazing ability to teach you a
Speaker 2: piece of profound wisdom. And this is something that I
Speaker 2: have really taken to heart from my interactions with a grandmother's,
Speaker 2: just appreciating more the local culture and the role that
Speaker 2: it can play in addressing not only mental health issues,
Speaker 2: but a wide range of issues that people are struggling
Speaker 2: with in communities or in society.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with a slight change of plans.
Speaker 1: Doctor Dixon Chibanda, a psychiatrist in Zimbabwe, had an idea
Speaker 1: for how to help more people in this country access
Speaker 1: mental health services, and it would come to be known
Speaker 1: as the Friendship bench. Here's how it would work. Members
Speaker 1: of the community with mental health needs would be paired
Speaker 1: with local grandmother. They then plan to meet up at
Speaker 1: a bench outdoors and work through problems the person was facing.
Speaker 1: Dixon took his idea to some grandmothers in his community
Speaker 1: in order to get their feedback.
Speaker 2: I was given fourteen grandmothers who were not very excited
Speaker 2: about working with me initially.
Speaker 3: Because can you tell me more about that?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, when I approached them, I had my
Speaker 2: psychiatrist's hat, and over time, over the years, I've realized
Speaker 2: that when you really want to engage with communities, you
Speaker 2: need to take off your professional hat. If you really
Speaker 2: want to heal people who are traumatized in this part
Speaker 2: of the world, you need to rely on the local language,
Speaker 2: the local idioms of distress, and just use the language
Speaker 2: that resonates with communities. Because when you use their own language,
Speaker 2: you instantly remove stigma. Because stigma is one of the
Speaker 2: biggest problems that we face in mental health and in
Speaker 2: this part of the world. Stigma is brought about because
Speaker 2: we're trying to adopt terms that I used in the
Speaker 2: western world. You know, if you talk about depression in
Speaker 2: my country, people think you've lost it yourself. That people
Speaker 2: don't believe there's depression. People think that depression is something
Speaker 2: that just doesn't happen to people in this part of
Speaker 2: the world. But if you use the terms which resonates
Speaker 2: with the local folks, like in our culture, for instance,
Speaker 2: the equivalent for depression is a word called kofungi sisa,
Speaker 2: which literally means thinking too much. When you break down
Speaker 2: the symptoms of thinking too much in the local language,
Speaker 2: it's exactly the same as depression. So you know, I
Speaker 2: learned from the grandmothers that the words that we use
Speaker 2: and the terms that we use to describe people's emotional
Speaker 2: experiences can make or break people.
Speaker 1: Fascinating, So you said, the grandmothers were not excited initially
Speaker 1: about the prospect of working with you, but you learned
Speaker 1: to adopt the language of the locals right and to
Speaker 1: make sure that you were speaking in their terms. Was
Speaker 1: that effective in getting them onto your side and motivating
Speaker 1: those fourteen initial grandmothers to want to partner with you.
Speaker 2: I remember grandmother Jack, the very first grandmother who I
Speaker 2: interacted with and spoke to about the friendship bench and
Speaker 2: the idea that I had. She was very apprehensive initially
Speaker 2: and dismissive when I first approached her, because I was
Speaker 2: I was using lingo from the DSM five, you know,
Speaker 2: the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, which is kind of the psychiatrist
Speaker 2: handbook or bible, you know, and I was using terms
Speaker 2: from that book. And she's looking at me, like, and
Speaker 2: you think that kind of stuff is going to fly
Speaker 2: in this community.
Speaker 3: You know, it's totally interesting.
Speaker 2: You know, And I remember distinctly, you know, she said,
Speaker 2: if you really want to make a difference in this community,
Speaker 2: you have to put down your book and don't come
Speaker 2: here acting like a doctor. She knows the community inside out.
Speaker 2: And I persisted, you know, every week, you know, I'd
Speaker 2: go to the clinic, you know, meet the grandmother's and
Speaker 2: you know, grandmother Jack would be looking at me, you know,
Speaker 2: very skeptical and and and gradually, you know, she warmed
Speaker 2: up to me, you know, and gradually you know, they're
Speaker 2: bought into the whole idea of therapy on a bench.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know you said that the grandmother is eventually
Speaker 1: warmed up to you. But it seems like a key
Speaker 1: feature of that is the fact that you maintained an
Speaker 1: open mind throughout right you were you were viewing this
Speaker 1: as a dialogue between you and grandmothers, right, a two
Speaker 1: way street in which both sides were contributing to the conversation.
Speaker 1: And I think that's such an important lesson for people
Speaker 1: who are trying to bring new and innovative approaches to
Speaker 1: their communities. You know. An example of this is that
Speaker 1: initially you had planned to call the bench the mental
Speaker 1: health bench, right yeah, and no one was coming what
Speaker 1: it was called the mental health bench, and then the
Speaker 1: grandma's you know, came to you, I imagine Grandma Jack
Speaker 1: was among them and said, look, Dixon, you need to
Speaker 1: change the name to Friendship Bench. No one is going
Speaker 1: to come to the mental health bench.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And that's a good example of me having
Speaker 2: my psychiatrist's hat on, you know, like, hey, this is
Speaker 2: we're providing mental health services. Yes, so this is the
Speaker 2: mental health bench. And it just didn't occur to me
Speaker 2: that a name could make or break a program, But
Speaker 2: learned now. You know, the language is very important, the
Speaker 2: language that you use to navigate through the therapy, through
Speaker 2: the session, that's critical because that's what people identify with.
Speaker 2: So yeah, indeed, everything is in a name.
Speaker 1: I guess I'd love to dive a bit deeper into
Speaker 1: the features of Friendship Bench, and there's this very strong
Speaker 1: storytelling component involved. But what's truck me about the program
Speaker 1: is that both sides are encouraged to share their stories.
Speaker 1: And I find this fascinating because in the clinical world,
Speaker 1: providers are often discouraged from sharing personal stories, right, but
Speaker 1: you've identified that there are huge therapeutic benefits to having
Speaker 1: people bond in this way. So can you share a
Speaker 1: bit more about that?
Speaker 2: Sure? I think before I share one of the things,
Speaker 2: I'd like to also just mention that through my interaction
Speaker 2: with the grandmothers, over the years, my own approach as
Speaker 2: a psychiatrist has changed significantly. I am more comfortable sharing
Speaker 2: my own story with clients who come to me, you know,
Speaker 2: for help, and I find that extremely powerful because you
Speaker 2: really connect at a human level. You know. When we're
Speaker 2: trained as psychiatrists, we're trained to keep this distance, don't
Speaker 2: really open up, don't show your vulnerabilities because as a
Speaker 2: therapist you're supposed to be strong, but actually there's a
Speaker 2: lot more strength in showing your vulnerabilities. There's a lot
Speaker 2: more strength that comes from telling your own story, including
Speaker 2: the negative things, because then you really connect. Because one
Speaker 2: of the things I've learned from Friendship Bench is the
Speaker 2: therapy actually starts when you connect with a person. The
Speaker 2: different steps that you take in the process of reaching
Speaker 2: out to people are important, but if you do not
Speaker 2: have that connection that from poor you may lose everything else.
Speaker 2: So if you ask me what I consider to be
Speaker 2: the most critical feature of the work we do, it's
Speaker 2: that connection. Being able to get two people to connect
Speaker 2: in a way that is empathic. And that's the first part,
Speaker 2: you know, which the grandmother's call or opening up the mind,
Speaker 2: because without opening up the mind, you don't get to
Speaker 2: the root of the problem. The other key component that
Speaker 2: we emphasize is the grandmother's ability to summarize. So if
Speaker 2: you're listening to a story, you know, this is what
Speaker 2: I normally would say to the grandmothers. If you're listening
Speaker 2: to a story, how does the person that is telling
Speaker 2: the story know that you really were listening? And the
Speaker 2: simplest way is a summary. You know, a good summary
Speaker 2: of what you've heard shows how well you were immersed
Speaker 2: in the story, and you can see from the grandmothers
Speaker 2: who are brilliant at summarizing, they are also the best
Speaker 2: grandmothers when it comes to immersing themselves into a story
Speaker 2: and also showing that empathy and that ability to make
Speaker 2: people feel respected and understood. So those are the two
Speaker 2: key components.
Speaker 1: Another component of the friendship bench is a diagnostic screening tool.
Speaker 1: The grandmothers have everyone who comes to the bench fill
Speaker 1: out a questionnaire so they can get a better sense
Speaker 1: of what kinds of symptoms the person is experiencing and
Speaker 1: their degree of severity. If someone presents with severe symptoms,
Speaker 1: the grandmother refers them right away to a trained medical professional,
Speaker 1: but if someone presents with more mild to moderate symptoms,
Speaker 1: the friendship bench is for them. Grandmothers are trained in
Speaker 1: a form of cognitive behavioral therapy called problem solving therapy,
Speaker 1: which focuses on identifying concrete problems like unemployment, rather than
Speaker 1: the symptoms of that problem like anxiety. Grandmothers then work
Speaker 1: with a person to brainstorm specific steps they can take
Speaker 1: to solve the problem, and according to research, this focus
Speaker 1: on resolving specific problems can give people a greater sense
Speaker 1: of agency over their lives.
Speaker 2: A classical sort of presentation on the bench is, you know,
Speaker 2: a young client presenting with numerous problems. I'm HIV positive,
Speaker 2: I'm unemployed, I'm in an abusive relationship, I have a
Speaker 2: child who is not able to go to school because
Speaker 2: I don't have money to pay for school fees. I'm
Speaker 2: struggling to feed my family. So they present with numerous problems,
Speaker 2: you know. And one of the things that has really
Speaker 2: characterized the therapy component is the ability to help these
Speaker 2: clients who come to the bench after sharing these stories,
Speaker 2: the ability of the grandmothers to help them select one
Speaker 2: problem to focus on. And that sounds very simple, but actually,
Speaker 2: when you're immersed in all these problems, every single one
Speaker 2: of those problems is a big problem for you. So
Speaker 2: because the grandmothers live in these communities, the actual treatment
Speaker 2: is often not only on the bench, but it also
Speaker 2: occurs in the community. So you can get a grandmother
Speaker 2: meeting a client, for instance, at church, So I'll see
Speaker 2: you this Sunday at church and you and I can
Speaker 2: pray together. I will see you at the market and
Speaker 2: we can do this together. So you're slowly introducing a
Speaker 2: very practical kind of behavior activation to help someone who
Speaker 2: is depressed and unmotivated and isolating themselves at home because
Speaker 2: they feel they're in this miserable situation. But because the
Speaker 2: grandmother has come up with the set of activities that
Speaker 2: they then carry out together, you slowly begin to see
Speaker 2: this person transforming. So that's one sort of example of
Speaker 2: how the grandmothers will deal with situations of depression. Often
Speaker 2: people think the work we do is just on the bench.
Speaker 2: The bench, the friendship bench, or the bench. The physical
Speaker 2: bench is just an entry point. There's a lot more
Speaker 2: that happens outside of the bench. We encourage everyone who
Speaker 2: sat on the bench with the grandmother is to join
Speaker 2: a support group in the community. And through the support
Speaker 2: groups that you get peer support with individuals who've all
Speaker 2: gone through the Friendship Bench, share their own experiences and
Speaker 2: collectively problems solve around challenges that they have racing within
Speaker 2: the community.
Speaker 1: I'd love if you could talk about the efficacy of
Speaker 1: the program, because you actually ran a randomized control trial,
Speaker 1: which is considered the gold standard of evaluation, and found
Speaker 1: some extremely exciting results.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we have over fifty peer reviewed publications, you know,
Speaker 2: scientific publications about the Friendship Bench. But I guess the
Speaker 2: most seminal publication would be our cluster randomized controlled trial
Speaker 2: which is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association,
Speaker 2: which in a nutshell shows that six months after receiving
Speaker 2: therapy from a trained community grandmother on a bench in Zimbabwe,
Speaker 2: people were still symptom free. The grandmothers were in essentially
Speaker 2: much better than enhanced usual care, and enhanced usual care
Speaker 2: was a trained mental health nurse, clinical psychologists or psychiatrists,
Speaker 2: you know. And I think the reason why the grandmothers
Speaker 2: tend to be better is because they are rooted in
Speaker 2: their communities. The grandmothers are the custodians of local culture
Speaker 2: and wisdom, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's positively changing the lives of grandmothers as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of our most recent publication actually took a
Speaker 2: random sample of grandmothers who are working on friendship bench
Speaker 2: and compared them with a similar random sample of grandmothers
Speaker 2: with similar social demographic characteristics, and we found that the
Speaker 2: grandmothers who work on friendship bench were a lot more resilient,
Speaker 2: They had lower rates of common mental disorders and postraumatic
Speaker 2: stress disorder. And when we dug deeper, we actually found
Speaker 2: that this work gave the grandmothers, a profound sense of
Speaker 2: purpose and a sense of belonging, and this is why
Speaker 2: they do this work. It's a win win. Actually, they
Speaker 2: are not only reaching out and helping people, but it's
Speaker 2: helping them too.
Speaker 1: So one thing that's been so exciting about the program
Speaker 1: is that the Friendship Bench is scaling to places all
Speaker 1: over the world. What are your future dreams for this program,
Speaker 1: like if you could wave a magic wand what is
Speaker 1: the presence of the Friendship bench like in communities all
Speaker 1: over the world.
Speaker 2: The vision of Friendship Bench is to actually have a
Speaker 2: friendship bench within walking distance everywhere. It sounds grandeous, very ambitious,
Speaker 2: but it's something that I am working towards because in
Speaker 2: every culture, people thrive when they connect with each other.
Speaker 2: And the Friendship Bench is not just an intervention that
Speaker 2: addresses mental health issues. It's really an intervention that connects people.
Speaker 2: And I think that's where the real power of this
Speaker 2: comes from. And when you connect people, particularly using grandmothers
Speaker 2: or the elderly, you have this profound sense of belonging
Speaker 2: and it creates a sense of purpose, particularly for the
Speaker 2: grandmothers and the you know so, So I think that's
Speaker 2: that's what I would like to see you know in
Speaker 2: the next coming years, and unfortunately we are you know,
Speaker 2: we are gaining traction. Uh. And I just want to
Speaker 2: make it possible for every person out there who needs
Speaker 2: to connect, who feels they need to talk to be
Speaker 2: able to talk to someone who is empathic, someone who's
Speaker 2: able to respect them and to understand them.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes
Speaker 1: Tyler Green our senior producer, Jen Guera our senior editor,
Speaker 1: Ben Holliday, our sound engineer, Emily Rosstek our producer, and
Speaker 1: Meia LaBelle our executive producer. Louis Scara wrote our theme
Speaker 1: song and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight
Speaker 1: Change of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, So
Speaker 1: big thanks to everyone there, including Malcolm Gladwell, Jacob Weisberg,
Speaker 1: Lee tal Mallatt and Heather Fame, and of course a
Speaker 1: very special thanks to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Shunker
Speaker 1: See you next week.
Speaker 3: Is there any chance for grandfathers?
Speaker 2: When we first started, we did involve some grandfathers. The
Speaker 2: challenge with grandfathers is they just don't have the same
Speaker 2: ability as grandmothers when it comes to creating space and
Speaker 2: letting people tell their stories. Grandfathers tend to be prescriptive.
Speaker 2: They tend to tell you what you need to do.
Speaker 2: You go and talk to this person, and go and
Speaker 2: do this.
Speaker 3: You know, so there's some man explaining going on.
Speaker 2: Yes, quite a lot of it.