How counsellor-grandmothers of Zimbabwe are averting a mental health crisis

Zimbabwe's Friendship Bench counselling service has been replicated in African countries such as Tanzania, Malawi, Kenya and Botswana [Courtesy of The Friendship Bench]

Harare, Zimbabwe – In Zimbabwe, a country of 15 million people, there are fewer than 20 psychiatrists.

And mental health issues are rife, given a litany of trauma unaddressed for decades: first the horrors of British colonialism and the liberation struggle and then the Zimbabwean army’s killing of thousands of people in the southwestern region of Matabeleland for allegedly supporting ex-guerrillas who turned on the government after independence.