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2020 PHOTO GALLERY
ARCHIVES
New Youth Bench Attachment Students
20-29 JULY 2020
Every year the Friendship Bench takes on a group of students who are required to do an industrial attachment before returning to their respective universities for final year of studies.
The students take the lead in the Youth Friendship Bench programme. They get trained in the Friendship Bench approach with added youth focused modules. Once the 8 days training is complete they are ready to deliver the PST intervention as peer counsellors in the community.
Obviously this year we will be doing it a bit differently, we've taken the Youth Buddies online! Covid-19 has been an encouraging force to take this step and so far online talk therapy has been embrace in the Youth demographic. We look forward to seeing how the latest students work on community mobilisation as they create awareness of positive mental health and the virtual Youth Friendship Bench.
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Chitungwiza Stakeholders Gathering For Scale-Up
13 JULY 2020
When we go into a town or village, urban or rural area. it is vital that we meet with Stakeholders before hand. Relationship building and learning to understand what the situation is on the ground is a key element to the success of the Friendship Bench, no two places will ever be the same, we need to listen to the stories from all levels of the community.
In Chitungwiza we met with the office directors, District Health Promotion Officers, the Matron in charge, the Sisters in charge, the Lay Health WOrkers as well as Friendship Bench beneficiaries. This was a very attentive group of 14 people, eager to motivate their low performing clinics to reach and deliver mental health care to more people in their community.
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Gweru Grandmothers; first face to face training since Covid-19 lockdown!
JUNE 2020 (GWERU)
A group of FB trainers, coordinators and assistants travelled to Gweru to teach 28 Grandmothers about the Friendship Bench Intervention as part of our national scale-up plan.
We were greeted by blue skies, green grass and eager to learn Lay Health Workers!
The Problem Solving Therapy was well received, the Grandmothers are full of energy and ready to start mobilising in their community. Role plays went well and we have great confidence in their ability to connect and communicate empathy to clients who seek their support.
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Online Training with the Friendship Bench Grandmothers
JUNE 2020
Lockdown continues, covid-19 anxiety is high, starvation is consuming the nation, unemployment is widespread, reports of domestic violence stream in and substance misuse is rife. Training our Grandmothers in the online delivery of Problem Solving Therapy has been a high priority of ours in the face of all these problems
Over 5 days we used Whatsapp to teach our Grandmothers how to make the shift from sitting on the bench to being able to use Whatsapp to effectively help their communities. We are so grateful for the open minded Grandmothers who have taken to the online delivery like ducks to water!
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Circle Kubatana Tose
Gardens
JUNE 2020
One thing that COVID19 hasn’t stopped is the Grandmother and clients Circle Kubatana Tose gardens!
Started just before Zimbabwe’s Lockdown they are doing amazing. This new leaf (no pun intended) is our latest behavioural activation & income generation component to the Friendship Bench intervention.
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Lockdown Lightened! Which meant we could take a trip to check in on the Grandmothers in Gweru & Chitungwiza
MAY 2020 (GWERU & CHI TOWN)
Past 2 weeks have been inspiring and enlightening. Being able to travel meant we could not only deliver masks to our Grandmothers but also start their online WhatsApp training so they can continue to 'see' clients and provide the much needed safe space to talk about their current problems. There are alot of people not knowing how to feed their families, hungry children and bored youths because schools are still shut. Everyone needs someone to talk to, an empathic ear who listens and cares.
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Mask distribution and hand washing guides for Grandmothers during covid-19 pandemic.
APRIL-MAY 2020 (HARARE)
There is no escaping the pandemic, this past month has involved a lot of adaptation and improvisation. Lockdown in Zimbabwe has been a struggle, with no food stores, rise in domestic violence and continued closure of the informal sector we need mental health care now more than ever.
Huge thank you to the Old Legs Cycle Tour for donation of masks for the FB Grandmothers, to African Threads for the miles of masks sewn and to The Rafiki Network for coordinating everything.
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CKT Gardens.
Permaculture Training On the Edge of Lockdown.
March 2020
Just before the Covid19 Zimbabwe Lockdown was announced we started training our next group of Grandmothers and some Friendship Bench beneficiaries in permaculture.
We had a successful trial at one of the clinics and so are working to carry this behavioural activation and income generation component of the intervention throughout all clinics.
Watch this space for organic vegetables and drop in SSQ scores!
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Uni Friendship Bench Buddies taking part in the Colour Run
Bindura University
9 March 2020
Our University Friendship Bench Buddies spent their Saturday at Bindura University colour run.
We were invited there to talk about mental health & creating awareness about the free talk therapy FB offers on campus for all students needing a safe space to talk and find belonging.
We want students to know
YOUR FEELINGS ARE VALID and
MAKE YOUR MENTAL HEALTH YOUR PRIORITY
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Piloting a new CKT: Permaculture gardening
perma'nent+culture
= PERMACULTURE
20-28 February 2020
Imagine you could grow, pick, eat and sell produce that will nourish, sustain and support you & your family... We want to provide people with the knowledge needed to bring this to life.
With the help of a passionate farmer, gardener, sustainable liver Linda Gabriel (IG page link) we have started to train a group of clients and LHW in the principles of sustainable gardening.
We believe problems can be fixed in gardens.
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FBPlus - ASSET
Health System Strengthening
17-24 February 2020
FBplus, a collaborative research project between ASSET and ourselves had a busy month with all ASSET projects meeting for their annual meeting in Addis Ababa and then hosting a Theory of Change workshop here in Harare.
Both produced some gems of information and best practices in going forward into the 2020 year.
find out more about ASSET and our research, funded by NIHR, in partnership with Kings Global Health KCL.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/assetKGHI
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Welcome DRK Nathalie & Katie to FB!
3-7 February 2020
The Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation was founded on a belief in the power of innovation and the conviction that with bold support, passionate individuals with great ideas can change the world.
With this in mind we are extremely honoured that they have come to visit the Friendship Bench and met with the Grandmothers at Hatcliff Clinic. There is a lot in the pipe line, watch this space for high impact at scale.
We're making new friends around the world who are earnest drivers of change for good and this is encouraging.
Find out more about the
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Refresher Course
Seke North & South
FEBRUARY 2020
One of the Friendship Bench values is 'continued learning'. So we have started to visit the Friendship Bench Clinics to carry out refresher courses with all community health workers and to share some findings of what the 2019 RE-AIM evaluation from team Optimise FB brought to light.
It's great to see the Grandmothers still know their PST steps and they are open to new methods of data collection. It also great that they are sharing their experiences and suggestions of improvements to the system to get it as optimally working for quality mental health care as possible.
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Youth Friendship Bench Student Supervision.
Topic: SEX
9th JANUARY 2020
Dr. Ruth Verhey is back at it with the Youth Friendship Bench students. Supervision happens twice a month and is a time where the Dr engages the students in all that is taboo, stigmatised, discriminated against and in general would make for awkward conversation for many. Not on our watch, this is the generation of the future and the time for change is now.
For anyone wondering, the red object is a 3D printed clitoris! Find put more here
Follow the YouFB activities on Twitter
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Matapi Flats new years greetings.
3rd JANUARY 2020
New decade, same strong resilient women raising their families in Matapi Flats, Mbare.
With the bit of rain we got in December the Friendship Bench garden was full of green vegetables and egg plants. A great way to start the year was visiting the women of Matapi Flats.
Majority of them are widows, now too old to work, many look after their grandchildren while their children go out and work or for some they they are now the parents of their grandchildren having lost their own children.
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Clinic visits start.
JANUARY 2020
Community building takes time, our plan for 2020 is to spend as much time as possible at clinics supporting the Grandmothers and ensuring they have the resources they need so they can deliver the best possible intervention.
The Grandmothers receive so much community respect because of the work they do, from being true to their beliefs and being non-judgemental to those around them. We don't believe this is rocket science, we believe this can be achieve in all communities with the right ingredients.
They truly are our core.
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2019 PHOTO GALLERY
ARCHIVE
GACD, OptFB Stakeholder Meeting
17-19 OCTOBER 2019
Stakeholders meeting before going forward with the Qualitative component of the Optimise Friendship Bench project, working with The Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases.
Thank you everyone for a great workshop! Dr. Verhey, Dr. Chibanda, Dr. Healey, Dr. Wagenaar, Dr Araya, Grandmothers, Grandfather, FB team, Nurses, Clients, Ministry reps & lunch time Chefs! Onwards into the qualitative phase!
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Facilitating training at Bindura University; to get accessible and affordable mental health care on campus
OCTOBER, 2019
There’s so much to be enjoyed at uni, but for some people, it can be a time of loneliness, exam anxiety, of being weighed down by worries about relationships & finances.
We are so excited that approval has come through from Bindura University of Science Education and the Social Work faculty is on board and eager to get mental health care onto their campus.
We did weekend trainings with the BUSE students and could not have asked for a better group of enthusiastic students.
This is our trial University, we are looking to 2020 to go into more.
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CeSHHAR Theory of Change Workshop
SEPTEMBER 19, 2019
The Centre for Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Research Zimbabwe (CeSHHAR) houses a number of HIV prevention and sexual health research and programmatic projects.
Over the years we have met CeSHHAR employees who then contacted us to see about setting up a Friendship Bench that has a key focus on sex workers in Zimbabwe.
We had an amazing Theory of Change Workshop where all key stakeholders were present, including a group of sex workers and the Grandmothers.
"We would never want to take away the option of sex work but we want to create spaces for mental health support .We want people to practice safely & have a place to go to share their feelings where there is deep understanding and no judgement. #TheoryOfChange"
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Friendship Bench Open House training in PST
SEPTEMBER 9-13, 2019
Many organisations are requesting the Friendship Bench, we have started with trainings for those organisations we are already working close with on projects or who we have been in contact with in other areas of research activities over the past few years. This was a great training to see how people who do not necessarily work in a mental health care or even social work industry take to the approach. We see more and more that diversity brings wisdom, fresh perspectives and helps open peoples minds to the importance of respecting individuality.
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Inhouse Qualitative Training
SEPTEMBER 10, 2019
PROJECTS ARE MOVING INTO QUALITATIVE PHASES AND SO IT WAS TIME TO BRING IN THE PROFESSIONALS FOR SOME TRAINING!
Friendship Bench held an inhouse training on Qualitative Research, facilitated by Dr Webster Mavhu a qualitative specialist. The training was to introduce the OptFB, FBPlus and YouFB project teams to the concept of qualitative research as they prepare for the qualitative components of their studies. MUCH WAS LEARNT.
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ICOPE DEP meeting
MAY 15-17, 2019
Friendship Bench hosted the project development meeting for ICOPE-DEP (Integrated Care for Older People),
addressing low mood and other unmet health needs of older adults in Ethiopia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Delegates from various institutions and from across the globe met at the Friendship Bench house to discuss collaboration on the ICOPE-DEP project.
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Evangelische Frauenhilfe Church from Westfalen Germany.
MAY 7, 2019
25 women from the Evangelische Frauenhilfe church in Westfalen Germany emailed us earlier in the year, they were going to be on a world prayer tour and wanted meet some Friendship Bench beneficiaries while they were in Harare.
We organised for 9 Friendship Bench clients to come and share their experience of mental health recovery, the tools and skills they leart and how they maintain their mental wellness by participating in Circle Kubatana Tose groups. It was an afternoon of women seeing women. There were variations in culture, language, race, religion, mental health and age but shared care, compassion and much laughter. Beneficiaries were also able to sell their crocheted bags and amaze the visitors that VHS tapes were now being used as crochet ribbon.
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GACD, Optimise FB on a field trip to Gweru for qualitative data collection.
APRIL, 2019
So much energy in Gweru even with the cold! These women are standing strong in their community, there is no alternative help for people with mental health problems so they take their work and referral system very seriously. Most Grnadmothers still carrying and using their ZEEbags from the training!
Best surprise was meeting a Friendship Bench Grandfather who works as a Bench mobiliser.
We look forward to seeing them again for the qualitative phase.
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Training for new Youth Bench Buddies and the public!
APRIL 15-19, 2019
The Friendship Bench mission is to provide a sustainable community based mental health intervention that is evidence based, accessible and scalable. In pushing for scalability we have been hosting and facilitating public trainings in the Friendship Bench Approach to problem solving therapy for anyone above the age of 18 who wishes to apply for the 5-10 days of training. We have had amazing response from the public and continue to get messages requesting more trainings. Our first training was held for the public and new Youth Friendship Bench Buddies.
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Friendship Bench ZW. Photography Exhibition in Germany.
JULY 7, 2019
The Friendship Bench held a photo exhibition to mark the launch of the Friendship Bench Trust in Germany!
Photos and canvases we're provided by Photographer, Rainer Kwiotek, which were shot on his visit to Zimbabwe in 2018.
Rainer together with the Zeitenspiegel journalist Isabel Stettin published a multiple page feature on the Friendship Bench, it was beautiful!
Check it out...
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Garden Update, just before winter!
APRIL
The garden is flourishing! We have minor anxiety about the water situation and the winter cold coming so thought now was the time for a quick update.
In the beds currently are lettuce, spinach, eggplant, onions, cabbage, beetroot, covo, tsunga and a mass of herbs.
Peter the grounds man has been to Foundations for Farming on a course and hopefully we will get a compost pile going soon.
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YouFB 'buddies';
the future of mental health care.
MARCH 2019
PEer counsellors
Students on attachment
The Friendship Bench, after it's success has embarked on the Youth Friendship Bench (YouFB) study.
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One in six people are aged 10–19 years.
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Mental health conditions account for 16% of the global burden of disease and injury in people aged 10–19 years.
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Half of all mental health conditions start by 14 years of age but most cases are undetected and untreated.
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