On any given afternoon in a discreet area outside health clinics in the capital of Harare, and surrounding cities, an elder woman can be found on a bench listening intently to another person’s stories.
She’s affectionately called a “grandmother,” an appropriate term for her role offering comfort, encouragement and a ready ear. But she’s no one’s grandmother, at least not of the people who sit with her on the bench. Rather, she’s one of 300 older Zimbabwean women who have been trained to administer therapy-like services to thousands in a country where access to care is devastatingly scarce and the mental health stigma is strong.
The grandmothers are trained in what is essentially the Western model of cognitive behavioral therapy, but they use indigenous terms that their “patients” can more easily relate to. There’s not even a word for depression in Zimbabwe, that’s too clinical. Instead, people call what they’re feeling, “kufungisisa” or, “thinking too much.”
Using the native Shona language, Chibanda teaches the grandmothers how to administer three stages of talk therapy. The first is “kuvhura pfungwa,” which translates to “opening up the mind,” a method of encouraging them to identify their problems and feelings. Then they move on to “kusimudzira, which means “uplifting the individual,” where the grandmother works with the person on problem-solving. And finally, “kusimbisa,” which translates to “strengthening,” and is a way for the grandmother to give the person coping tools they can use again and again.
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