FIFA Adopts Zimbabwean's Model On Mental Health ...

FIFA Adopts Zimbabwean's Model On Mental Health Therapy

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Zim Now Writer

Thirty-two benches - each representing a team competing in the Federation International Football Association (FIFA) tournament in Qatar - will be set up to cast the spotlight on global mental health.

The model is a brainchild of a Zimbabwean who is the Friendship Bench Founder and psychiatry professor, Dixon Chibanda. It is aimed at providing therapy services for citizens through the use of lay health workers, colloquially referred to as “grandmothers”.

Chibanda’s concept is a simple setup with a wooden park bench where people experiencing common mental disorders sit and receive free therapy.

The World Cup version of the therapy will be in partnership with the World Health Organisation (WHO) whose Director General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has praised the creativity as “a simple yet powerful vehicle for promoting mental health.

“It is a reminder of how a simple act of sitting down to talk can make a huge difference to mental health,” he said.

Harare’s Health Services director, Dr Prosper Chonzi, described the benches as a “masterstroke”.

“Demand for mental health services is high due to the economic situation. This is one of the best interventions. It has made a huge difference in terms of averting suicides,” he said.

Other countries such as Jordan, Kenya, Malawi and Zanzibar have adopted the friendship bench model while in the United States of America 60,000 people in the Bronx and Harlem areas have accessed the therapy.

The Friendship Bench provides sustainable community based psychological interventions that are evidence-based, accessible and scalable.

Friendship Bench has nearly 1,000 benches and over 1,500 grandmothers in different localities. They have assisted 160,000 people in the last two years alone.