As the bells ring out at Archbishop Okoth Ojolla Girls' High School, 900 students descend onto a field, carrying brightly coloured chairs. Every week for a month, the students have been gathering in small groups as local secondary-school graduates lead therapy sessions. Whitney Ndemo, a psychologist at TINADA Youth Action Africa in Kisumu, was standing nervously to one side. A supervisor for the programme, Ndemo was thinking about a student from another school, who had been referred to her after he tried to take his own life. 'He has been through a number of traumas,' Ndemo says, including his father's death and his mother's rape and murder. His friends and teachers were of little comfort, but he opened up to these older peers, who promised to keep his secret ' and to help. (If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please reach out through https://findahelpline.com.) The Shamiri Institute, a non-profit mental-health organization in Nairobi, has been developing programmes...
learn more
