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Our History

Friendship Bench History

2006 - Present

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2024 (Present)

969 new CHWs trained so far in Zimbabwe, and New Orleans in USA. Expanded to 268 primary health care facilities. 161 new CKT groups, bringing a total to 739. 482329 clients seen since 2016. 2910 chws trained to date.


Trained 2 partners using the FB In A Box toolkit. Onboarded Master Trainers fluent in 21 languages to translate the FB In A Box and train.

Launch of the FRIENDZ Project in partnership with WHO, Zimbabwe Ministry of Health and Child Care.

2023

Launch of the Friendship Bench In A Box
The Friendship Bench In A Box is a DIY toolkit that brings together lessons from over 10 years of Friendship Bench work in an effort to provide a coherent step by step process on how to introduce Friendship Bench in a new setting or how to sustain Friendship Bench in an area where it has already been introduced. The FB In A Box allows for easy replication of the Friendship Bench intervention anywhere in the world!
The FB In A Box became the blueprint for training all new delivering agents. Friendship Bench successfully trained HelpAge USA grandparents in Washington DC using the FB In A Box.

220 766 clients seen in 2023, bringing the total to 482329 clients seen since 2016. 969 new CHWs trained in Zimbabwe and Washington DC, bringing the total to 2910 chws trained. Expanded to 268 primary health care facilities in Zimbabwe, and 1 city in the U.S. 203 new CKT groups, bringing the total to 578.

We began a pilot in Colombia, South America with UNAB school of Nursing.

4 new publications!

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2022

94197 clients seen in 2022, bringing the total to 239576 clients seen since 2016. 1290 CHWs trained, bringing the total to 1617. Expanded to 191 primary health care facilities. 254 new CKT groups formed- bringing a total to 400.


To strengthen CKT groups, we integrated the Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) model into our CKT
activities.


The Covid-Go Care for The Carer program in partnership with OPHID, was implemented from February 2022 to November 2022 across 7 provinces in Zimbabwe. The main goal of the intervention was to strengthen mental health and psychosocial support and promote self-care among Health Care Workers (HCWs) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We reached out to 4966 hcws.

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2021

Expanded to 9 Cities in Zimbabwe (Gwanda, Kariba, Mutare), and 131 primary healthcare clinics - 88 in Zimbabwe, 32 in Zanzibar, 1 Malawi. We trained 313 CHWs. 54486 clients sat on the bench in 2021, making a total of 143353 clients seen since 2016.  20 new CKT groups were created, bringing the total to 88. Partnership with WHO Integrating Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in the Workplace. 11 corporates in Zimbabwe participated under the programme.


Friendship Bench was approved to open an ‘American Friends Fund’ with the King Baudouin Foundation United States (KBFUS), a U.S. public charity within the meaning of Sections 501(c)(3) and 509(a)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code.


The Friendship Bench name trademarked by the United States Patent and Trademark Office under Reg. No. 6585340, as of December 14, 2021

2019 - 2020

Moved into our first ever Friendship Bench office. Rebranded and trademarked the Friendship Bench logo.

NGOsource Equivalency Determined certificate in the U.S. Applied to gain Charitable Trust status in the UK.

 

Friendship Bench officially became a PVO (Private Voluntary Organisation). This was a big deal in Zimbabwe as it meant that we moved from being a Trust, under the Ministry of Justice to be a PVO registered with the Department of Social Welfare. A PVO in Zimbabwe is equivalent to a 501(c)(3).

Launched Youth Friendship Bench in 2019, and the Open Line in 2020.

By end of 2021, we had expanded to 6 cities in Zimbabwe (Harare, Gweru, Bulawayo, Kwekwe, Masvingo, and Chitungwiza), and 61 facilities.

The Ministry of Health and Child Care (MOHCC) launched the Mental Health strategic plan to cover the period 2019- 2023 in which the Friendship Bench was included.

Partnered with OPHID to provide mental health support to adults and children living with HIV, and to communities where families are caring for PLHIV in Zimbabwe. 2 partnerships (OPHID and Prison Ministries International).

Launched the 'Friendship Bench Online' programme in response to the Covid-19 pandemic as lockdowns prevented access to facilities. We started providing support through WhatsApp and Inuka.

We got a house donation to use as a community centre in Harare.

7 research projects!

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2015 - 2018

Conducted an RCT in 2015, published by JAMA. Expanded to 36 clinics - 28 in Harare, 4 in Chitungwiza and 4 in Midlands province.

Friendship Bench officially registered as a Trust (The Friendship Bench Trust).

2011 - 2014

Conducted an RCT in 2015 and expanded to all clinics in Harare, and 4 clinics in Midlands province.

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2006 - 2010

Where it all began. The first Friendship Bench in a small township called Mbare, Harare in Zimbabwe. Grandmother Jack was the first Grandmother to see clients on the Friendship Bench. 14 Grandmothers had this 1 bench in Mbare, developing the Friendship Bench intervention with Prof. Dixon Chibanda. This started as a research project and eventually scaled to 4 clinics in Mbare.

In 2006 Prof. Dixon Chibanda was the only psychiatrist working in  public health  in Zimbabwe. While he was working in a psychiatric hospital, one of his patients took her own life at home. Erica (his patient) and her mother did not have bus fare to come see him in Harare. This made Prof. Chibanda realise that he needed to take mental health care to  communities for people to have  access to care within a walking distance. The first Friendship Bench was introduced with no resources except for a group of 14 volunteer grandmothers who were trained to deliver talk therapy in their community (Mbare).  For the first 4 years, Prof. Dixon Chibanda supported the Friendship Bench initiative with his own salary. solve

When Prof. Chibanda was training these grandmothers, he tried to adhere to medical terminologies developed in the West, like “depression” and “suicidal ideation”. But the grandmothers told him this would not work. To reach people, they insisted they needed to communicate through culturally rooted concepts that people can identify with. Therefore they worked together to incorporate Shona concepts Friendship Bench uses today: opening up the mind (kuvhura pfungwa), uplifting (kusimudzira) and strengthening (kusimudzira). repsychl

We need your support to get a Friendship Bench within walking distance for all!

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