Zim funding

A technique developed and demonstrated in Zimbabwe to be an inexpensive, effective way to alleviate depression and other mental illness symptoms, will expand to reach fourteen thousand additional people this year, thanks to a recent international investment. The 'Friendship Bench' program is said to have had a powerful impact in reducing depression in the country. This project, like many others on the African continent who's had a positive impact on the respective communities, have earned scale-up investments from Grand Challenges Canada, totalling about six million US dollars. Mental health disorders constitute 14% of global disease worldwide. But almost three quarters of this burden occurs in low- and middle-income countries, where a shortage of trained personnel and other resources leave enormous populations with little or no access to mental illness treatment. Dixon Chibanda is Leader of a Nongovernmental Friendship Bench project, in Zimbabwe..