African women gathered together with their children for a counseling session

StrongMinds

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Model & Strategy

StrongMinds focuses on the most pervasive and debilitating mental illness in Africa, which is also the number one cause of disability for women on that continent:  depression.  There are 60 million women in Africa who suffer this mental illness, and 85% of them have no access to treatment.  StrongMinds presently operates in Uganda, where 1 out of every 4 women suffers from depression.

As the only organization with a model specifically designed to scale a solution for depression throughout Africa, StrongMinds provides a simple, innovative and cost effective approach by using a community-based model of group talk therapy to treat depression among sufferers.  These talk therapy groups use a structured model over three months and help group members identify and manage their triggers of depression—without the use of trained medical personnel or medications. Members of these groups also forge strong social bonds with their fellow depressed peers, and most of these groups continue to meet over the long term after formal sessions end.  These self-perpetuating groups permit members to reinforce the skills they have learned and also enable the women to manage and prevent their future depressive episodes.

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At a Glance
Founded: 2013
By: Sean Mayberry
Health
Location of work: International, Africa
https://strongminds.org/
StrongMinds
515 Valley Street
Suite 6
Maplewood, NJ 07040
Treating depression at scale in Africa
Two African women speaking on the steps of an African home
Sean Mayberry
Meet Sean Mayberry

Sean is a former diplomat and social marketer who believes there are simple and cost-effective interventions which can improve an area that is often overlooked when addressing development: mental health. While living and working in Africa for nearly a decade implementing HIV/AIDS and malaria programs, he saw first-hand the struggles and lack of access for those suffering from mental illness and was inspired to create a solution. In 2013, he discovered the findings of a randomized control trial from 2002 in which group talk therapy was successfully used in Uganda to treat depression—and the idea for StrongMinds was born. Sean left his position as the CEO of a global anti-poverty organization and founded StrongMinds, using his family’s savings and volunteering full-time for the first two years, choosing to divert all the team’s limited donor funds into the Uganda program and ultimately prove that the group talk therapy model could work at scale.

IMPACT

Since starting fieldwork in 2014, StrongMinds has reached over 43,000 depressed women and some men in Uganda. After completing the 12-week group therapy, more than 75% of these women were depression-free. Two years later, approximately 78% of these women were still able to prevent depressive episodes. Approximately 75% of the groups continue to meet and support each other following the treatment period.

During its 2014 pilot intervention, for those women who became depression-free, self-employment increased by 22%, women who could begin to save part of their income increased by 63%, women who consumed three meals a day increased by 245%, and their children missed fewer days of school (days of school missed in the last week decreased by 22%).

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