In Kenya, 1 in 5 girls aged 15 to 19 become mothers. Many of these young women encounter significant mental health vulnerabilities during pregnancy and postpartum. Stigma and isolation lead to school dropout, strained relationships and difficulties managing motherhood which are compounded by traumatic deliveries and high instances of intimate partner violence. These adverse factors lead to many teen mothers being at high risk of postpartum depression, affecting both maternal and infant well-being, especially among those in low-resource communities. Despite their urgent need for assistance, the young women struggle to access or afford mental health support in Kenya.
This project will provide 30 pregnant and postpartum at-risk teen girls from urban Nairobi, with intensive group therapy and psychosocial support over 12 weeks, treating and preventing postnatal depression.
Participants will develop resilience and coping skills through group therapy, art therapy and psychoeducation. By enhancing self-awareness and self-confidence, they’ll learn to become confident caregivers for themselves and their children. Additionally, a supportive community among participants will be established, promoting comfort, solidarity and resilience as they journey into motherhood together.
The CYRM and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale will be utilised at the start and end of the program to monitor the girls’ progress and ensure they’re getting the care they need to become healthy mothers with mental and emotional stability, and strong professional and peer support networks.
Each Just Peoples project is designed and delivered by a local leader from the country of implementation in collaboration with their local community. All Just Peoples project leaders are part of a global community of 16 leaders who are all tackling poverty in their local communities and share learnings between them.
This project will be led by Kenyan, Bright Shatimi, a passionate mental health entrepreneur on a mission to combat the stigma and misunderstanding surrounding mental health in his country and ensure access to services for all.
Bright and his team deliver grassroots mental health support programs in low income communities across Kenya. He takes on board the learnings from each community project run and uses it to strengthen the design of future interventions.
Those interested in funding this initiative have the opportunity to meet directly with Bright via video call. They'll be able to learn more about the project and the local context for pregnant teens in Kenya and determine whether supporting this project will help them meet their goals of contribution.
Following the delivery of this program, the project funder will have the opportunity again to meet directly with Bright to hear his reflections about the impact that the program has had on Kenyan teen mothers.
We believe in a world without poverty. Where communities have the power to solve their own problems, their own way.
We don’t believe that foreign intervention is the key to solving poverty. We believe that real, sustainable change comes about when people are given the resources to lift their own communities out of poverty. We tackle global poverty by backing grassroots leaders to design and deliver locally appropriate solutions to the challenges their communities face. Just Peoples currently supports 12 local leaders from across Africa and Asia who are bringing to life a wide-range of projects based on delivering gender-based, health, education, technological, and economic outcomes for people living in poverty. The leaders we support are effective because they have a deep understanding of the local context of poverty in peoples’ lives, and have established respected relationships in their communities. Their insight and expertise make them the best people to understand problems, and implement culturally appropriate solutions that work. So far we have supported 34 local leaders to deliver 202 grassroots projects globally, impacting the lives of over 240,000 people living in poverty.
