De-Stigmatize, De-Colonize: Mental Health Through Local Arts in Nairobi’s Slum
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Adolescent mental health problems, which are highly prevalent in low-income regions, present an urgent public health problem. Traditional psychotherapy and psychiatric treatments are long, costly, stigmatized, and impractical in these contexts. We developed and tested an arts-based mental health intervention that is delivered by lay-providers. Our findings from a large urban slum in Kenya shows that simple l interventions that focus on positive human attributes may reduce depression and anxiety symptoms and should be considered for use in low-resource settings.
SPEAKERS:
Tom Osborn is the founder and CEO of Shamiri, a youth-led organization that is providing affordable, evidence-based mental health care to young people across Sub-Saharan Africa, and especially Kenya, where 45 percent of young people struggle with mental health problems. In a region where mental health professionals are scarce and stigma limits help-seeking, Shamiri implements affordable and personalized mental health interventions in community-based settings. He graduated from Harvard College. When he was 19 years old, Osborn was named to the global Forbes"30 under 30 list" for social entrepreneurship.
David Ndetei, MD, is Professor of Psychiatry, University of Nairobi,Kenya and the founder and Director of the Africa Mental Health Researchand Training Foundation (AMHRTF). He has served as the PI or Co-I formost Kenyan published clinical and community epidemiological studieson mental health and substance abuse. He has over 358 scholarly publications including authoring 6 books and 21 monographs. All of them are on psychiatry and mental health with different books targetinglay readers, medical and paramedical students, general doctors andmental health specialists. He is finalizing the editing of his latest book "African Text Book of Psychiatry and Mental Health: Integrated Clinical and Public Health Approaches", which bringstogether multidisciplinary contributors from Africa and beyond.
Doris Sommer, PhD, is Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies. She is the founder of Cultural Agents, an Initiative at Harvard and an NGO dedicated to reviving the civic mission of the Humanities. Her academic and outreach work promotes development through arts and humanities, specifically through “Pre-Texts” in Boston Public Schools, throughout Latin America and beyond. Pre-Texts is an arts-based training program for teachers of literacy, critical thinking, and citizenship.
ORGANIZER: Harvard Mind/Brain/Behavior Interfaculty Initiative