July 1, 2024 • 35 mins
Bright Shitemi experienced depression and suicidal ideation as a young man following the traumatic aftermath of his mother's attempted suicide when he was a child. He learned firsthand how mental health is treated by Kenyan society and how people suffering are stigmatised, marginalised and even criminalised. In this episode, Bright shares how he came back from the brink and began working to bring mental illness out of the shadows so that every Kenyan can safely share how they're feeling and access professional and dignified healthcare and support through the pioneering non-profit he founded, Mental 360. He's an inspiring man on a beautiful, and very human, journey.
Get Involved!
Learn more about Bright Shitemi's work and how you can support him to provide access to mental healthcare to all Kenyans here: justpeoples.org/leaders/bright
Why Give a Buck?
Because with $2,500 USD Bright's team can deliver 12 weeks of group therapy and psychosocial support to 30 vulnerable teenage mums. And with $33,000 USD Bright can establish and run a community wellness centre for a year.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Johanna (00:00):
Why Give a Buck? is proudly brought to you by Just
Peoples, an internationalnonprofit that directly connects
givers and doers to addressglobal poverty.
Hello, and welcome to Why Give aBuck? I'm Johanna de Burca,
Christey (00:20):
and I'm Christey West
Johanna (00:20):
Each month on Why Give a Buck? we highlight innovative
individuals tackling poverty intheir local communities across
Africa and Asia, and explore whywe should give a buck.
Christey (00:25):
Bright Shitemi's traumatic family history lead
him on a path of depression anda sense that life wasn't
livable. When he was at rockbottom, a simple Facebook post
informed him for the first timethat seeking help for a mental
(00:46):
health crisis was an option.
Today we're speaking with Brightabout how his experiences of
addressing his own mental healthbecame the catalyst for him to
make sure that all Kenyans hadaccess to affordable and
culturally appropriate mentalhealth care.
Johanna (01:01):
Bright is the founder and Executive Director of Mental
360 , one of Kenya's mostpioneering mental health
nonprofits. He is a drivingforce in advocating for improved
national mental health policiesand care throughout Kenya, and
is tackling the mental healthcrisis, one community at a time,
through the establishment ofcommunity wellness centers.
(01:22):
Bright is also the creator ofthe Boma wellness app, which
leverages the 80% Internet andsmartphone penetration among
youth in Kenya to improve accessto mental health care.
Christey (01:36):
Bright faced floods and rain to join us from his
car. We're so happy to have youhere Bright welcome. Thank you
for joining us.
Bright (01:45):
Thank you, Christey for the warm welcome. It's very cold
here, but you really warmed meup. I'm really excited to have
this conversation and talk aboutmental health, especially for us
young people in Africa.
Johanna (01:57):
Wonderful. Welcome.
Welcome, Bright, it's sobeautiful to see your smiling
face. First of all, we'd love tohear about your reasons for
setting up Mental 360. I knowit's very personal to you. So
we'd love for you to sharewhatever you're comfortable
sharing.
Bright (02:12):
Thank you. My story actually starts a long time ago,
around 1994. I was four yearsold, my father and mother, I saw
them fight a lot, up to a pointwhere my mother attempted
suicide, and she had to berushed to hospital. And that was
the last time I saw her in thatmarriage. So my parents
separated. Many years later, asa young boy in school, I
(02:34):
realized I was going through alot of emotional turmoil. I
wasn't able to connect it to myupbringing, but I became very
rebellious in high school.
Thankfully, I still stayed in astraight line I performed well,
I went to uni. But as I wasgoing through life, you know,
I'm a young man now and thingsstarted unraveling around me. So
I lost a few of friends I met inhigh school and some in
(02:57):
University to suicide. And everytime I would lose someone to
suicide, it would take me backto my mother's attempted suicide
back in 1994. And when I do themaths, my mother must have been
in her 20s. So this is a veryyoung person. And it got me
thinking what really leadspeople to that point? Yeah,
well, around 2016, I was inNairobi getting a job, I was
(03:22):
struggling to make ends meet. Ihad a relationship back then, I
had a daughter with my ex. Andat that point, our relationship
was getting to a tough time. Iwas also struggling with the
relationship with my father,because we had a little
fundamental differences. And Irealized I was struggling to go
(03:42):
to work, I would go to work andliterally want to sleep all day.
I was struggling to eat. I wasisolating more and it hit me
that I'm probably going throughdepression. Yeah, it got to a
point where I decided toactually resign from work
because I wasn't productive inany way. Look for a small place
where I can stay and basicallylocked myself in that room. I
(04:06):
stayed there for six months. Itwas six months of a total
blackout. In that period, no onewas reaching out to me, I
realized that I don't have anyfriends. You know, you just
disappear off the face of theearth. And I really sank into
deep depression for around sixmonths. So I got to a point
where I said, Look, once I runout of cash, I will have to end
(04:26):
my life. I remember I got to apoint where I had around 3000
shillings left. 3000 shillings,to give you context, is about 30
US dollars. Okay, so I decidedokay, I'm gonna have to go and
say goodbye to my daughter. Imanufactured a story and told my
ex that I've been diagnosed withcancer and I have no money. So
(04:47):
I've made a decision that I haveto kill myself, please tell my
daughter that I love her and todo this because of this
situation, trying to soften theblow for my daughter when she
grows up and she learns that herfather died.
Christey (05:01):
Wow.
Bright (05:02):
So I came back to Nairobi. And as a scrolling
through Facebook, I saw a friendof mine who had posted about his
bipolar diagnosis. And so Ireached out to him in a way to
share about what I was goingthrough. And this was the first
person I had seen talk publiclyabout their mental health
because it was highlystigmatized, I couldn't for the
life of me, go on Facebook andsay that I was depressed. Yeah,
(05:26):
I reached out to him. And whenwe met, we talked about his
situation. He told me "look, Istarted having challenges in
high school". I told him aboutmy situation and how I started
having challenges. He helped mefigure out that probably my
upbringing had a part to play init, the trauma that I was
exposed to. And so I said tohim, why don't you go to high
(05:47):
school and talk to the kidsabout mental health? If your
situations started happening inhigh school? For me, I didn't
realize what was happening. Butin high school, I was going
through a lot of emotionalturmoil. Well, why don't you go
to talk to the kids about mentalhealth, there could be many of
them, going through this and wewent to our former high school,
I remember the guidance andcounseling teacher telling us
(06:07):
because you're here we have abig crisis, you have to talk to
the whole school. So over thecourse of four days, we had
conversations with kids, andabout 30 of them reached out
needing support, some of themgoing through depression, some
of them battling addiction, someof them dealing with a lot of
trauma, trouble from homepressures. And it became a
challenge for me to go out andlook for people who can come
(06:30):
together and support them. So wegot together with a group of
volunteers. And we went back toschool. And that's how we
started. In a very short time, Ifound myself with a troop of
six, seven people walking aroundtalking about mental health. And
I said, Come on, we are anorganization, why don't we just
go ahead and register? So 3years later in 2018 we got
registered and that's our story.
Johanna (06:52):
Wow, thank you so much for sharing that with us,
Bright, it's so deeply personalfor you and it's so incredible
that you had come from such adark place, and then just
reaching out and having that oneconnection that you could talk
about your feelings with led tothis wonderful creation of
support for so many others. Andwe'll talk more about how you're
(07:12):
really expanding your reach toensure that other young people
aren't feeling alone whenthey're going through mental
health struggles.
Christey (07:19):
Are you still in touch with the guy whose Facebook
posts you saw? Who essentiallysaved your life? Does he know?
Bright (07:26):
Yeah, I told him, I told him, he actually got me out of
that bed, I wasn't going to meetanyone. I mean, I had no one to
talk to. So we're still intouch. He's a yoga instructor,
we're still in touch we're stillfriends. He's also a mental
health advocate. So we get tocollaborate a few times.
Christey (07:42):
What a special role to play in your life. I wonder what
he thought, maybe he didn'toverthink when he posted that.
But it's just so incredible. Thepower of that moment where you
were considering going to tellyour daughter probably quite
soon. I imagine 30 USD doesn'tlast long. So you were really on
the edge. And it brought youback. I don't know, it's just
such a powerful moment,considering that you became such
(08:05):
an important person for so manyother people's mental health
journey and their survival as aresult. It makes me wonder if
maybe if that Facebook postwasn't there, there would have
been something else that savedyou it was meant to be, do you
know what I mean?
Bright (08:18):
Yeah, I really think for me, it's very important to find
ways to connect or have peerconnections, because at that
point, I was going through mychallenges. One, I had no
resources, and I know many otheryoung people don't have
resources. So how can you affordto get therapy services? And
then there's the informationalresource. Do you have any
knowledge of what you're goingthrough and where you need to
(08:39):
go? So many people going throughmental health challenges don't
even know the difference betweena psychologist or psychiatrist
or even that they exist andwhere to find them. And so it's
very important that we have anelement of awareness creation
that people are first aware, andto reduce the gap to access
mental health services, becauseyou're locked out because there
is no funds to access and it'svery expensive. And the public
(09:02):
health care system isoverwhelmed. We only have one
mental health institution, themajor one in Nairobi called
Mathari. Wow, we have only about100 psychiatrists for population
over 50 million. So that tellsyou that there's very little
resource. So that's why it'svery important for us to
strengthen both social supportsystems, the peer networks and
(09:22):
reduce the gap to access mentalhealth services.
Johanna (09:25):
And you mentioned to us that one of the ways that you do
this, because obviously, as youmentioned, it's so stigmatized
to actually talk about mentalhealth. You've shared with us
before that in your work, youuse poetry and music to talk
about mental health.
Bright (09:39):
Yeah, so I think as I was going through what I was
going through back then musicand poetry were really a
powerful tool for me, it is whatused to soothe me and help me
get through or deal with myemotions. And I realize that
when you engage young people,especially in such complex and
heavy topics, you need toconnect to them on a personal
level. And these connectionshappen through storytelling and
(10:02):
through art. Art has been a verypowerful tool, especially in the
African traditional context, ina way of passing messages
through generations in a way ofencouraging people even in times
of war, in times of sorrow, socarrying the message through art
became a very powerful way tocommunicate. Based on that we
started a project called theCreative Arts Festival. And
(10:25):
apart from using it as anawareness platform, it's also an
advocacy tool. We bring in thenational entities like the
Ministry of Health, thegovernment, or to advocate for
policy issues on mental healththrough art. And we had a major
success in 2019, when you hadour inaugural event, and you had
the ministry there, we had apresentation from the
parliament, were able to pushfor implementation of the Mental
(10:47):
Health Amendment Bill, which wasactually done one year later.
What we had previously was thelaw as it was during the
colonial times, the Britishcolonialists left in 1963. So we
were pushing for policy review.
So there are certain issues inthe law that stigmatize people
with mental illness, forexample, they couldn't own
property that are deemed to beunable to work. So if someone is
(11:09):
diagnosed with depression, thenthey have to leave their job
because they're not able towork, legally speaking. So we
had to change those things,there was the issues of informed
consent, people who are goingthrough mental illness will be
taken forcefully against theirwill. Sometimes they'll be even
put in chains and locked inhouses. Yesterday, someone
(11:31):
reached out to a friend callingout for help, because his family
had actually put him in chainsbecause he has some form of
mental illness. And they werebeating him, trying to beat the
demons out of him, these verybarbaric ways of trying to treat
mental illness which don't work.
Oh, my goodnessIf you think that it's
appropriate to share whathappened, what was your
(11:53):
intervention, and were you ableto help him and his family?
It's an ongoing issue.
Unfortunately, they're very faraway. It's not a place I can
access physically, they are inthe north eastern part of Kenya,
that's towards Somalia. And thepeople who are perpetuating the
violence and the barbarictreatment methods are the
family. So the family can't bepart of that solution. At the
(12:16):
moment, it's an active case, I'mtrying to get through to the
government facilities, there bethe police, because with the law
that you passed, that's anillegal thing happening over
there. You can't chain someonebecause of a mental illness. I'm
actively pursuing the case, I'mhoping to get in touch with
local police in that area, sothat they can look at him and
hopefully get him from thatsituation. Unfortunately, and
(12:38):
this is the most frustratingbits, if you are able to get in
from that situation. Where do wetake him? Because the government
doesn't have any facility? Whatdo we do? Now imagine that's one
case, or do you have 1000, 2000,5000 of assault cases happening.
What do you do so you becomevery challenging, very helpless,
because at the end of the day,they have to go back to their
(13:01):
families. So we are hoping thatonce you're able to get him out
of that situation, you can havea conversation with the family
and tell them look, we can havealternative ways of addressing
this problem that actually work.
Because someone who is able torecord the violence they're
experiencing, share those imagesreach out to someone for help,
that's someone who has very goodcognitive ability, they realize
(13:22):
what they're going through,they're being abused, and they
need help. So you can't keepputting such a person in that
situation. You're not helping.
So we're pursuing the case. Andwe hope we get a positive
outcome with it
Christey (13:33):
Well, if anyone is committed to see it through and
get a good result. It's you.
Bright (13:38):
Thank you so much, I appreciate it. But this is still
happening right now. And that'swhy it was very important to
have those policy changes thatthese issues can now be
addressed legally. So in thefestival, we launched a book
called The Many Faces of MentalHealth. But also more
importantly, we had humanstories. We had songs that talk
about these issues that you'retrying to advocate for the
(13:58):
parliamentarians were there,they listened to it, some of
them broke down to tears andcried, they realize that these
are real issues affecting peopleand even affecting them, because
some of them talked about theirown mental health challenges.
Even the ones who are secretlyor privately going through
mental challenges tend tostigmatize these issues. So
those are very powerful events,the message resonated with
(14:19):
parliament, and one year the lawhad been passed in Parliament
and the President was able toascend to it. And now we have
new mental health law.
Christey (14:26):
It's the most beautiful advocacy win.
Johanna (14:29):
Wow.
Christey (14:30):
I can't believe you brought the politicians to
tears. What a powerful way ofnot only reducing stigma, but
actually getting them toprobably begin their own journey
to mental wellness.
Bright (14:42):
Yeah, that was amazing.
Because when you talk aboutthings in abstract ways with
numbers, it doesn't reallyregister until people hear human
stories and they're like, Whoa,yeah, I saw that. It's in me
it's in someone. I know. It's inmy children. So I need to do
something about it.
Johanna (14:57):
Oh, big time. Yes, absolutely.
Christey (15:00):
I had another question related to the policy, I think
last time we talked, you said itwas a crime to attempt suicide.
And people who failed ended upin jail rather than getting
health care. Is that still thecase?
Bright (15:16):
Yeah. So when we pushed for the mental health bill, that
was a big sticking point,because the government argued
that, look, human beings orpeople are government property.
And so when that happens,there's a criminal element to
it. And so we felt, okay, we'vegot a 90% of what you wanted,
let's get ahead with the lawfirst and have it passed. Now,
(15:39):
we are addressing the issue ofdecriminalization of suicide as
a standalone issue. And theconversations are ongoing. But
as that is happening, we're evenraising awareness among police
officers, we are seeing a changein attitudes and behaviors. So
for example, nowadays, when apolice officer reports on a
scene of crime where there wasan attempted suicide, their
first point of contact is amental health institution or
(16:01):
somewhere to get them supportand not to take them to prison.
So it's encouraging when youhear of such instances, it means
the message is getting to thepeople, even before the policy
change, even before we've sortedthings, legally, people are
already changing their behavior.
Wow, this is so encouraging whatan incredible impact you're
having.
That's fabulous. That's so good.
And do you mind explaining a bitof the context around what it
(16:25):
means to face mental healthissues when you're living in
poverty? I know that you have alot of focus on really
financially vulnerable groups inKenyan society. Do you mind just
sharing a little bit about theextra challenges.
So people who live inunderserved communities are
(16:46):
really highly affected. Becauseone, the access to support is
non existent. As I said, there'sonly one major mental
institution in Kenya. And soeven for a family to come to you
and say, We want to take thisfamily member to an institution,
they can't afford the transport,they can't afford the cost of
(17:06):
care. I gave the example of afriend of mine who comes from
the northeast and part of Kenyawho's been chained. Yeah. And if
you go across many of thefamilies living in poverty,
that's usually the resultbecause he can't afford the
primary health care system, oryou're not even knowledgeable
enough to know that this is canbe addressed in a different way.
People tend to drift now towardswitch doctors, traditional
(17:30):
medicine, but these things haveshown not to work. And sometimes
in those places, an element ofviolence, people being beaten,
you know, beating the demons onsomeone. So this is happening
across many, many settings. Andit's quite unfortunate, but it's
because people are notknowledgeable. And it's because
people cannot afford access tocare. So it's really important
(17:51):
that we work with people inunderserved communities, because
they're the most affected due tothe financial constraints that
they have, apart from the factthat when they're going through
a mental health situation isthat the situation they didn't
even is a trigger. So when youtalk about that, and it's, for
example, Kenya has a lot of postelection violence issues, those
violence rates are higher inpoverty areas. When you talk
(18:14):
about issues of flooding, wetalk about what is happening
right now, flooding, yes, it'saffecting mostly people who are
in these underservedcommunities. And so they're the
most vulnerable groups. And soit's important that we're also
going into these settings in abig way, have these
conversations, strengthen thepeer support system, because
with knowledge, they becomeaware that all these are ways
(18:37):
you can address, that there isorganizations that actually help
people who are going throughthese challenges. And as a
community, we can also supporteach other in that way. They say
information is power. And it'sreally important that we go in a
big way in the underservedcommunities and have these
conversations.
Christey (18:53):
Absolutely, My goodness. And are they receptive
to your awareness raisingcampaigns, because obviously,
they're used to thinking thatit's stigmatized, or it's
criminalized, or for all of thereasons that you've listed? It's
a kind of shameful thing to bedepressed or feel mentally
unwell. So when you come in anddo your awareness raising
(19:14):
campaigns and say that it's partof the human condition? What
kind of responses do you getfrom people?
Bright (19:19):
We usually are very strategic in the way we engage
communities because we realizethat some of them already have
really strong beliefs on certaintopics and issues. And so we
take a multi sectoral approachwhen you go into a community
first. We want to work withlived experience persons, who
are the people who are affectedfirst of all. And we train them,
(19:41):
we raise awareness among them,and we empower them to be voices
of change or peer supportchannels in their own
communities. Secondly, we go tothe second layer now of
stakeholder engagement. Andthese stakeholders are the
powerful voices who can actuallyaffect or inform how communities
perceive things and theirattitudes towards things. These
(20:01):
are the religious leaders. Theseare the political leadership.
These are the county government,the local chief. In Kenya, we
even have them there on tar assomeone who has small groups of
families around a small area. Sowe involve them in a stakeholder
engagement and where we haveconversations about these
issues, the most admirable thingis that once you have these
(20:23):
conversations, when we humanizethem, they realize that yes,
true, it's affecting us. And Isee it every day. And we need to
do something about it. So theytake ownership of it. So once
the stakeholders have takenownership, it has a ripple
effect, because the politicalleaders who are very persuasive
or who have a huge hold onpeople, when they talk about
mental health issues, peoplelisten to the religious leaders.
(20:45):
Now, once they become educated,once they know these things, and
they go in their community totalk about these issues. People
become educated and peopleeasily change. So do that
approach where we engage thelived experienced persons
putting them at the center ofour intervention, because they
become a shining light, we talkabout an issue, for example of
someone with mental illness whocannot work, someone with mental
(21:07):
illness cannot be treated. Andthey see someone who they know
in their own community who say,used to struggle with a form of
mental condition. But thissomeone is now empowered, the
petitioning the countygovernment on policy issues.
They are leading the communityconversations when it comes to
mental health. They are leadingsupport groups, they are
(21:27):
empowered to even run their ownbusinesses, they can now work,
it changes perceptions. So it'svery important for us to put
people with lived experience atthe center, and to engage
stakeholders to have that hugeimpact in communities.
Christey (21:39):
Wow, incredible, deep and effective work.
Johanna (21:44):
Could you share with us Bright about your community
wellness centers.
Bright (21:49):
And so after we've engaged the needs of experienced
persons and trained them, andwe've engaged the stakeholders,
we set up a community wellnesscenter. And it becomes very cost
effective because theleadership, the stakeholders
themselves, or the livedexperience, people will say, Oh,
by the way, this is the model,we have a space that you can use
whether the city don't have topay for the space, because it's
(22:10):
a community space, the countygovernment will say, Oh, we have
a resource here that you canuse, we have a field here that
you can put up a structure, andit becomes the Community
Wellness Center. And becausethey own it, they run it
themselves. The peer championsare there every day, on a
rotation basis. People who needmaterial support report to that
place, are they equipped toidentify support and refer if
(22:34):
there is need for referral, andbecause the whole community owns
it in becomes a very easy way tooperate. And so the community
wellness centers have workedvery well. we've piloted
Community Wellness Centers inthree communities now. And we
want to scale across communitiesin Kenya, informal settlements
and sub communities in Kenya.
And it has worked very well, inplaces we've piloted so we've
(22:54):
seen real impact becauseattitudes are changing on a huge
communal level, which isexciting. And people are now
talking about mental healthissues for people who previously
would never talk about them. Menopening up and the people with
lived experience are the oneswho are championing it. So it's
really powerful for community.
Christey (23:15):
Wow, that's transformational. I remember a
similar thing happening in NewZealand because we have a high
suicide rate in New Zealand. Andactually in Christchurch, where
Jo and I are from, there's aparticularly high rate, and I
don't know if you know, butrugby is very popular in New
Zealand. There's a kind oflegend All Black called John
(23:35):
Kirwan who played in the 80s and90s, maybe the era anyway, he's
beloved by a certain generationof kiwi men. And he came out and
said, "I have depression", thisAll Black hero, this tough guy,
and he said, "I havedepression". And it changed so
many people because if JohnKirwan can have depression than
(23:57):
I can have depression, too, youknow, and there had been lots of
other awareness campaigns withinNew Zealand about mental health
and this sort of thing. But whenJohn Kirwan came out, a
respected man who plays rugby,and said he had depression, then
lots of men suddenly startedlistening, and John Kirwan read
this website and men werereading his books, and because
they respected him, and if hehad lived experience, then that
(24:19):
sort of gave them the permissionto say, "me too", and to seek
help, and it opened up theconversation, it sort of cracked
it and it led to a real shift inhow mental health was perceived
in New Zealand. But I mentionedthat because it's similar to
what you're doing, getting theserespected people from within the
communities with livedexperiences to come out and
share their stories to giveother people the permission, you
(24:41):
know, you're not going to bestigmatized. It's okay to say
that this is happening and toget help.
Bright (24:46):
That's the power of storytelling, You're humanizing
these things and talking aboutthem. Because mental health
challenges are sometimes hard totell hard to see. We can be
smiling here. When one of us isgoing through a lot, then you'd
never know. You'd never know.
And so telling the story is veryimportant. That's how we get the
message out. And peopleunderstand because in many
cases, suicide comes as a shockto people, oh, so and so died by
(25:07):
suicide, or they looked so OK. Ijust saw them yesterday, what
was going on? So one, they'renot aware of the telltale signs,
and two, because you can mask itis very hard to tell. And so
that's why the power of tellingthese stories is very important
to encourage other people totalk about what they're going
through and get support.
Christey (25:27):
Absolutely.
Johanna (25:28):
And I'm just curious to hear what kind of traumas people
are facing in Kenya with thingslike the refugee crisis, sexual
trauma, extremist groups, whatare the main kinds of traumas
that people are dealing with?
Bright (25:42):
So I think the very first thing you see is that
mental health challenges stemout of families, with usually
generational trauma fromfamilies violence within
families, for whatever reason,so you can trace this to
somewhere, some trace it to theWorld War, where the grandfather
or someone went to the war andwhen he came back, he had PTSD,
(26:03):
he was violent and all thesethings, or he was abusive, and
then it got transmitted into thechildren and their children's
children. Some of it, can tracedback to the colonial structure,
some of it can be traced back tojust genetic factors. Yeah. And
because people are not aware,they tend to carry it forward.
For example, I grew up watchingmy father and mother fight a
lot. Whatever their mentalhealth situation was, that could
(26:27):
have been normalized for me in away that as a man, now with a
father or husband, I could bemaking out the same balance to
my wife, because it was what wasnormal for me. That's what I saw
growing up. So we see a lot ofthese family generational issues
going along. The other bigissues, of course, the issue of
the economical factors. Manypeople in Kenya, it's definitely
(26:47):
over 50% are living under thepoverty line. So people are in a
highly, highly stressfulenvironment. And this triggers
them in many, many ways. Andbecause they're not aware of how
to deal with what they're goingthrough, it's sometimes seeps
into a form of mental illnesses.
There's issues of traumas nowlike sexual violence, gender
based violence in societies,which is very rampant. Some of
(27:10):
them are cultural, some of themare happening even in cities.
The stats that I've seenpersonally, because I do mental
health work, 70% of the womenI've had conversations with and
who've opened up to me, I'vetalked about the abuse that
went, and this is sexual abuse.
70% is a huge number. And that'sjust people who are opening up
(27:32):
to me, sexually abused aschildren. It happened for most
of them
Johanna (27:38):
Sexual abuse. 70%?
Bright (27:40):
People don't talk about these things. So it's tough,
people keep quiet. When you goto the other side of the male
children, they've also gonethrough these traumas. But for
them, even especially theconversation doesn't happen. For
example, even now, in Kenya, wedon't have any rescue centers
for boys who have been sodomizedor abused. There's nothing to
(28:02):
support such children. So thoseare the patterns we've seen,
economical factors, generationaltraumas, and adverse childhood
experiences like sexualviolence.
Johanna (28:12):
Okay. And what is the context for the LGBTQI?
Community? Are they underincreased pressure?
Bright (28:15):
Yes, yes, indeed. So they are one of the biggest at
risk communities that areaffected by mental health
challenges. At some point, insome contexts, people who
identify as LGBTQ experiencedphysical violence, they
(28:35):
experience this association arebeing disowned by their own
families. And so they have toleave by themselves. Without the
family structure support, it cango really bad for many people.
And so people also get rejectedby the religious leaders. I have
another friend shared with me inthe story that the gentleman who
came to me and said, Look, I amstruggling with my sexual
orientation. And I identify as aChristian, for example, but I
(28:58):
would never talk about this,because I'm a church leader, and
it's causing internal conflict,and now they're thinking about
suicide. So these stories cutacross the LGBTQ community,
because it's a highlystigmatized issue. And what's
funny is people are happy tolive in secrecy. Even some of
them stigmatizing the LBGTcommunity, yet they are
(29:20):
themselves part of thecommunity. So it's a very
complex discussion, but it'shappening, suicide rates among
the LGBTQ community is quitehigh. And the key part of where
we want to also focus on becausea high at risk community, okay,
and if you go across Africa,thankfully for us in Kenya, the
(29:41):
judiciary has been quiteprogressive. So as much as the
society has rejected andstigmatizing some of these
issues, the legal fraternity hasbeen very progressive. If you go
to other contexts, it's muchmuch worse, but it's work that
needs to be done. Awarenesssupport for for LGBT
communities. It is because theyare really affected.
Christey (30:04):
Thank you so much for sharing such heartfelt
experiences with us. The workthat you're doing is so deep and
transformative. And I know it'ssomething that any human being
can relate to. Just because, aswe mentioned, being human is a
little bit traumatic foreveryone at certain times in
life. It's an incredibleachievement to go from six
(30:26):
months in a room by yourself,and planning the end of your
life to everything that you'redoing now. It's really the
phoenix rising from the ashes,your personal story. How do you
stay so bright?
Bright (30:39):
I love that you asked that question. Because when we
talk about mental health most ofthe time, it's usually a very,
very sad story. It's verytriggering story. But there's
also the other side of theredemption, someone who was in a
very bad place, and now they'redoing amazing stuff, or now they
do well, they go to work. And sowe need to also highlight a lot
of these positive stories. Yeah.
Because then people realize,okay, I can do that. I'm also
(31:02):
going through this right now.
But I can get better if I do1,2,3,4,5 things. For me, I
realize that one, and that's thekey approach that we take, is a
strength in the social supportsystems. I have a beautiful
family, having my kids, my wifewho understand my story and who
(31:23):
are very supportive, having alsopeople around you, it could be
friends that identify with you,and they don't judge you and
they open up their space anytimefor you to have conversation.
That's a very key part ofpositive mental health and
sustainable mental health.
Because I usually use an exampleof saying, if I take you to the
best hospital, the best mentalhealth institution in the world,
(31:45):
and you get the right treatment,and you get out of there, and
you fall back into the hands ofa triggering situation, what
does it help? So it's veryimportant to invest in those
social support systems. Anotherthing for me is nature. I love
nature a lot. I take my walks innature, they ground me, they
helped me reset from feelinganxious, just going on a stroll.
(32:07):
And that's free. Anyone can goon a stall in nature, some of
these things that are just free.
It's the music, right now musicis free, basically, you can
listen to YouTube, if you haveinternet. Interacting with
things that help you get intouch with your emotional side.
And lastly, for me throughsport. I play when I can, as
(32:27):
much as I am getting older everyday. I try to go and play
basketball. It helps you youknow, release endorphins. And
yeah, it really helps. Yeah,people don't think that much
about it. But it really doeshelp that you be getting some
physical activity. It helps you.
Christey (32:43):
Awesome, I love that.
I totally relate. I used to havea lot of anxiety on the daily
and when I started doing regularexercise, it made a huge
difference. Anxiety comes andgoes but it's not there daily
buzzing in my head on my neckand my back, like it used to,
and exercise stopped that. Andyeah, same as you, nature, good
friends to talk to. Those sortof quality friendships that lift
(33:07):
you up. And yeah, music,dancing, all of these things
that are free. They are the bestthings in life, aren't they?
Bright (33:15):
Oh, they are. The best things in life are free.
Johanna (33:18):
Beautiful. Well, I can't wait to we get to see you
in person again, Bright, forsome dancing for some strolling
in nature. Although last time wewere in Kenya, we slept in these
tents and there were like lionsoutside so the nature stroll
wasn't quite as relaxing as wethought it might be.
Christey (33:35):
That didn't come the anxiety that day.
Johanna (33:37):
It was actually highly anxiety inducing!
Christey (33:40):
We're so excited to continue on the journey with you
and help you expand your reachas much as possible. So thank
you so much for sharing with us.
We're really happy to hear this.
I feel hopeful.
Bright (33:52):
Thank you so much, Christey.
Johanna (33:53):
Thank you so much, Bright.
Bright (33:54):
Thank you, Jo. I'm really excited and thank you so
much.
Johanna (33:59):
For anyone listening in who's interested to learn more
or support Bright's vision, youcan visit
justpeoples.org/leaders/bright.
You can find these details inthe show notes.
Christey (34:13):
To give you an idea of how much your support could help
Bright to realize his dream ofcreating an African society
where everyone has access tomental health support. Around
$2,500 USD would enable Bright'steam to deliver 12 weeks of
group therapy and psychosocialsupport to 30 vulnerable teenage
moms. And $33,000 USD cansupport an entire community for
(34:36):
a year by funding the runningcosts of a community wellness
center.
Johanna (34:42):
You are such a bright person. Were you christened
Bright when you were born? Or isthat a name that has been given
to you based on your brightness?
Bright (34:53):
I was given the name Bright when I was born. I
remember some friends who usedto joke and say Bright, why did
they call you Bright? You're notthat Bright, no? Yeah, but to
hear you say that my namereflects the way I am is really
nice. It means I'm in a goodspace
Johanna (35:12):
Why Give a Buck? is proudly brought to you by Just
Peoples, an internationalnonprofit that connects givers
directly with local leaders atthe forefront of tackling
poverty in their localcommunities across Africa and
Asia. You can learn more anddirectly support the work of
Bright and other inspiringleaders by visiting
justpeoples.org.
Why Give a Buck? is proudly brought to you by Just
Peoples, an internationalnonprofit that directly connects
givers and doers to addressglobal poverty.
Hello, and welcome to Why Give aBuck? I'm Johanna de Burca,
Christey (00:20):
and I'm Christey West
Johanna (00:20):
Each month on Why Give a Buck? we highlight innovative
individuals tackling poverty intheir local communities across
Africa and Asia, and explore whywe should give a buck.
Christey (00:25):
Bright Shitemi's traumatic family history lead
him on a path of depression anda sense that life wasn't
livable. When he was at rockbottom, a simple Facebook post
informed him for the first timethat seeking help for a mental
(00:46):
health crisis was an option.
Today we're speaking with Brightabout how his experiences of
addressing his own mental healthbecame the catalyst for him to
make sure that all Kenyans hadaccess to affordable and
culturally appropriate mentalhealth care.
Johanna (01:01):
Bright is the founder and Executive Director of Mental
360 , one of Kenya's mostpioneering mental health
nonprofits. He is a drivingforce in advocating for improved
national mental health policiesand care throughout Kenya, and
is tackling the mental healthcrisis, one community at a time,
through the establishment ofcommunity wellness centers.
(01:22):
Bright is also the creator ofthe Boma wellness app, which
leverages the 80% Internet andsmartphone penetration among
youth in Kenya to improve accessto mental health care.
Christey (01:36):
Bright faced floods and rain to join us from his
car. We're so happy to have youhere Bright welcome. Thank you
for joining us.
Bright (01:45):
Thank you, Christey for the warm welcome. It's very cold
here, but you really warmed meup. I'm really excited to have
this conversation and talk aboutmental health, especially for us
young people in Africa.
Johanna (01:57):
Wonderful. Welcome.
Welcome, Bright, it's sobeautiful to see your smiling
face. First of all, we'd love tohear about your reasons for
setting up Mental 360. I knowit's very personal to you. So
we'd love for you to sharewhatever you're comfortable
sharing.
Bright (02:12):
Thank you. My story actually starts a long time ago,
around 1994. I was four yearsold, my father and mother, I saw
them fight a lot, up to a pointwhere my mother attempted
suicide, and she had to berushed to hospital. And that was
the last time I saw her in thatmarriage. So my parents
separated. Many years later, asa young boy in school, I
(02:34):
realized I was going through alot of emotional turmoil. I
wasn't able to connect it to myupbringing, but I became very
rebellious in high school.
Thankfully, I still stayed in astraight line I performed well,
I went to uni. But as I wasgoing through life, you know,
I'm a young man now and thingsstarted unraveling around me. So
I lost a few of friends I met inhigh school and some in
(02:57):
University to suicide. And everytime I would lose someone to
suicide, it would take me backto my mother's attempted suicide
back in 1994. And when I do themaths, my mother must have been
in her 20s. So this is a veryyoung person. And it got me
thinking what really leadspeople to that point? Yeah,
well, around 2016, I was inNairobi getting a job, I was
(03:22):
struggling to make ends meet. Ihad a relationship back then, I
had a daughter with my ex. Andat that point, our relationship
was getting to a tough time. Iwas also struggling with the
relationship with my father,because we had a little
fundamental differences. And Irealized I was struggling to go
(03:42):
to work, I would go to work andliterally want to sleep all day.
I was struggling to eat. I wasisolating more and it hit me
that I'm probably going throughdepression. Yeah, it got to a
point where I decided toactually resign from work
because I wasn't productive inany way. Look for a small place
where I can stay and basicallylocked myself in that room. I
(04:06):
stayed there for six months. Itwas six months of a total
blackout. In that period, no onewas reaching out to me, I
realized that I don't have anyfriends. You know, you just
disappear off the face of theearth. And I really sank into
deep depression for around sixmonths. So I got to a point
where I said, Look, once I runout of cash, I will have to end
(04:26):
my life. I remember I got to apoint where I had around 3000
shillings left. 3000 shillings,to give you context, is about 30
US dollars. Okay, so I decidedokay, I'm gonna have to go and
say goodbye to my daughter. Imanufactured a story and told my
ex that I've been diagnosed withcancer and I have no money. So
(04:47):
I've made a decision that I haveto kill myself, please tell my
daughter that I love her and todo this because of this
situation, trying to soften theblow for my daughter when she
grows up and she learns that herfather died.
Christey (05:01):
Wow.
Bright (05:02):
So I came back to Nairobi. And as a scrolling
through Facebook, I saw a friendof mine who had posted about his
bipolar diagnosis. And so Ireached out to him in a way to
share about what I was goingthrough. And this was the first
person I had seen talk publiclyabout their mental health
because it was highlystigmatized, I couldn't for the
life of me, go on Facebook andsay that I was depressed. Yeah,
(05:26):
I reached out to him. And whenwe met, we talked about his
situation. He told me "look, Istarted having challenges in
high school". I told him aboutmy situation and how I started
having challenges. He helped mefigure out that probably my
upbringing had a part to play init, the trauma that I was
exposed to. And so I said tohim, why don't you go to high
(05:47):
school and talk to the kidsabout mental health? If your
situations started happening inhigh school? For me, I didn't
realize what was happening. Butin high school, I was going
through a lot of emotionalturmoil. Well, why don't you go
to talk to the kids about mentalhealth, there could be many of
them, going through this and wewent to our former high school,
I remember the guidance andcounseling teacher telling us
(06:07):
because you're here we have abig crisis, you have to talk to
the whole school. So over thecourse of four days, we had
conversations with kids, andabout 30 of them reached out
needing support, some of themgoing through depression, some
of them battling addiction, someof them dealing with a lot of
trauma, trouble from homepressures. And it became a
challenge for me to go out andlook for people who can come
(06:30):
together and support them. So wegot together with a group of
volunteers. And we went back toschool. And that's how we
started. In a very short time, Ifound myself with a troop of
six, seven people walking aroundtalking about mental health. And
I said, Come on, we are anorganization, why don't we just
go ahead and register? So 3years later in 2018 we got
registered and that's our story.
Johanna (06:52):
Wow, thank you so much for sharing that with us,
Bright, it's so deeply personalfor you and it's so incredible
that you had come from such adark place, and then just
reaching out and having that oneconnection that you could talk
about your feelings with led tothis wonderful creation of
support for so many others. Andwe'll talk more about how you're
(07:12):
really expanding your reach toensure that other young people
aren't feeling alone whenthey're going through mental
health struggles.
Christey (07:19):
Are you still in touch with the guy whose Facebook
posts you saw? Who essentiallysaved your life? Does he know?
Bright (07:26):
Yeah, I told him, I told him, he actually got me out of
that bed, I wasn't going to meetanyone. I mean, I had no one to
talk to. So we're still intouch. He's a yoga instructor,
we're still in touch we're stillfriends. He's also a mental
health advocate. So we get tocollaborate a few times.
Christey (07:42):
What a special role to play in your life. I wonder what
he thought, maybe he didn'toverthink when he posted that.
But it's just so incredible. Thepower of that moment where you
were considering going to tellyour daughter probably quite
soon. I imagine 30 USD doesn'tlast long. So you were really on
the edge. And it brought youback. I don't know, it's just
such a powerful moment,considering that you became such
(08:05):
an important person for so manyother people's mental health
journey and their survival as aresult. It makes me wonder if
maybe if that Facebook postwasn't there, there would have
been something else that savedyou it was meant to be, do you
know what I mean?
Bright (08:18):
Yeah, I really think for me, it's very important to find
ways to connect or have peerconnections, because at that
point, I was going through mychallenges. One, I had no
resources, and I know many otheryoung people don't have
resources. So how can you affordto get therapy services? And
then there's the informationalresource. Do you have any
knowledge of what you're goingthrough and where you need to
(08:39):
go? So many people going throughmental health challenges don't
even know the difference betweena psychologist or psychiatrist
or even that they exist andwhere to find them. And so it's
very important that we have anelement of awareness creation
that people are first aware, andto reduce the gap to access
mental health services, becauseyou're locked out because there
is no funds to access and it'svery expensive. And the public
(09:02):
health care system isoverwhelmed. We only have one
mental health institution, themajor one in Nairobi called
Mathari. Wow, we have only about100 psychiatrists for population
over 50 million. So that tellsyou that there's very little
resource. So that's why it'svery important for us to
strengthen both social supportsystems, the peer networks and
(09:22):
reduce the gap to access mentalhealth services.
Johanna (09:25):
And you mentioned to us that one of the ways that you do
this, because obviously, as youmentioned, it's so stigmatized
to actually talk about mentalhealth. You've shared with us
before that in your work, youuse poetry and music to talk
about mental health.
Bright (09:39):
Yeah, so I think as I was going through what I was
going through back then musicand poetry were really a
powerful tool for me, it is whatused to soothe me and help me
get through or deal with myemotions. And I realize that
when you engage young people,especially in such complex and
heavy topics, you need toconnect to them on a personal
level. And these connectionshappen through storytelling and
(10:02):
through art. Art has been a verypowerful tool, especially in the
African traditional context, ina way of passing messages
through generations in a way ofencouraging people even in times
of war, in times of sorrow, socarrying the message through art
became a very powerful way tocommunicate. Based on that we
started a project called theCreative Arts Festival. And
(10:25):
apart from using it as anawareness platform, it's also an
advocacy tool. We bring in thenational entities like the
Ministry of Health, thegovernment, or to advocate for
policy issues on mental healththrough art. And we had a major
success in 2019, when you hadour inaugural event, and you had
the ministry there, we had apresentation from the
parliament, were able to pushfor implementation of the Mental
(10:47):
Health Amendment Bill, which wasactually done one year later.
What we had previously was thelaw as it was during the
colonial times, the Britishcolonialists left in 1963. So we
were pushing for policy review.
So there are certain issues inthe law that stigmatize people
with mental illness, forexample, they couldn't own
property that are deemed to beunable to work. So if someone is
(11:09):
diagnosed with depression, thenthey have to leave their job
because they're not able towork, legally speaking. So we
had to change those things,there was the issues of informed
consent, people who are goingthrough mental illness will be
taken forcefully against theirwill. Sometimes they'll be even
put in chains and locked inhouses. Yesterday, someone
(11:31):
reached out to a friend callingout for help, because his family
had actually put him in chainsbecause he has some form of
mental illness. And they werebeating him, trying to beat the
demons out of him, these verybarbaric ways of trying to treat
mental illness which don't work.
Oh, my goodnessIf you think that it's
appropriate to share whathappened, what was your
(11:53):
intervention, and were you ableto help him and his family?
It's an ongoing issue.
Unfortunately, they're very faraway. It's not a place I can
access physically, they are inthe north eastern part of Kenya,
that's towards Somalia. And thepeople who are perpetuating the
violence and the barbarictreatment methods are the
family. So the family can't bepart of that solution. At the
(12:16):
moment, it's an active case, I'mtrying to get through to the
government facilities, there bethe police, because with the law
that you passed, that's anillegal thing happening over
there. You can't chain someonebecause of a mental illness. I'm
actively pursuing the case, I'mhoping to get in touch with
local police in that area, sothat they can look at him and
hopefully get him from thatsituation. Unfortunately, and
(12:38):
this is the most frustratingbits, if you are able to get in
from that situation. Where do wetake him? Because the government
doesn't have any facility? Whatdo we do? Now imagine that's one
case, or do you have 1000, 2000,5000 of assault cases happening.
What do you do so you becomevery challenging, very helpless,
because at the end of the day,they have to go back to their
(13:01):
families. So we are hoping thatonce you're able to get him out
of that situation, you can havea conversation with the family
and tell them look, we can havealternative ways of addressing
this problem that actually work.
Because someone who is able torecord the violence they're
experiencing, share those imagesreach out to someone for help,
that's someone who has very goodcognitive ability, they realize
(13:22):
what they're going through,they're being abused, and they
need help. So you can't keepputting such a person in that
situation. You're not helping.
So we're pursuing the case. Andwe hope we get a positive
outcome with it
Christey (13:33):
Well, if anyone is committed to see it through and
get a good result. It's you.
Bright (13:38):
Thank you so much, I appreciate it. But this is still
happening right now. And that'swhy it was very important to
have those policy changes thatthese issues can now be
addressed legally. So in thefestival, we launched a book
called The Many Faces of MentalHealth. But also more
importantly, we had humanstories. We had songs that talk
about these issues that you'retrying to advocate for the
(13:58):
parliamentarians were there,they listened to it, some of
them broke down to tears andcried, they realize that these
are real issues affecting peopleand even affecting them, because
some of them talked about theirown mental health challenges.
Even the ones who are secretlyor privately going through
mental challenges tend tostigmatize these issues. So
those are very powerful events,the message resonated with
(14:19):
parliament, and one year the lawhad been passed in Parliament
and the President was able toascend to it. And now we have
new mental health law.
Christey (14:26):
It's the most beautiful advocacy win.
Johanna (14:29):
Wow.
Christey (14:30):
I can't believe you brought the politicians to
tears. What a powerful way ofnot only reducing stigma, but
actually getting them toprobably begin their own journey
to mental wellness.
Bright (14:42):
Yeah, that was amazing.
Because when you talk aboutthings in abstract ways with
numbers, it doesn't reallyregister until people hear human
stories and they're like, Whoa,yeah, I saw that. It's in me
it's in someone. I know. It's inmy children. So I need to do
something about it.
Johanna (14:57):
Oh, big time. Yes, absolutely.
Christey (15:00):
I had another question related to the policy, I think
last time we talked, you said itwas a crime to attempt suicide.
And people who failed ended upin jail rather than getting
health care. Is that still thecase?
Bright (15:16):
Yeah. So when we pushed for the mental health bill, that
was a big sticking point,because the government argued
that, look, human beings orpeople are government property.
And so when that happens,there's a criminal element to
it. And so we felt, okay, we'vegot a 90% of what you wanted,
let's get ahead with the lawfirst and have it passed. Now,
(15:39):
we are addressing the issue ofdecriminalization of suicide as
a standalone issue. And theconversations are ongoing. But
as that is happening, we're evenraising awareness among police
officers, we are seeing a changein attitudes and behaviors. So
for example, nowadays, when apolice officer reports on a
scene of crime where there wasan attempted suicide, their
first point of contact is amental health institution or
(16:01):
somewhere to get them supportand not to take them to prison.
So it's encouraging when youhear of such instances, it means
the message is getting to thepeople, even before the policy
change, even before we've sortedthings, legally, people are
already changing their behavior.
Wow, this is so encouraging whatan incredible impact you're
having.
That's fabulous. That's so good.
And do you mind explaining a bitof the context around what it
(16:25):
means to face mental healthissues when you're living in
poverty? I know that you have alot of focus on really
financially vulnerable groups inKenyan society. Do you mind just
sharing a little bit about theextra challenges.
So people who live inunderserved communities are
(16:46):
really highly affected. Becauseone, the access to support is
non existent. As I said, there'sonly one major mental
institution in Kenya. And soeven for a family to come to you
and say, We want to take thisfamily member to an institution,
they can't afford the transport,they can't afford the cost of
(17:06):
care. I gave the example of afriend of mine who comes from
the northeast and part of Kenyawho's been chained. Yeah. And if
you go across many of thefamilies living in poverty,
that's usually the resultbecause he can't afford the
primary health care system, oryou're not even knowledgeable
enough to know that this is canbe addressed in a different way.
People tend to drift now towardswitch doctors, traditional
(17:30):
medicine, but these things haveshown not to work. And sometimes
in those places, an element ofviolence, people being beaten,
you know, beating the demons onsomeone. So this is happening
across many, many settings. Andit's quite unfortunate, but it's
because people are notknowledgeable. And it's because
people cannot afford access tocare. So it's really important
(17:51):
that we work with people inunderserved communities, because
they're the most affected due tothe financial constraints that
they have, apart from the factthat when they're going through
a mental health situation isthat the situation they didn't
even is a trigger. So when youtalk about that, and it's, for
example, Kenya has a lot of postelection violence issues, those
violence rates are higher inpoverty areas. When you talk
(18:14):
about issues of flooding, wetalk about what is happening
right now, flooding, yes, it'saffecting mostly people who are
in these underservedcommunities. And so they're the
most vulnerable groups. And soit's important that we're also
going into these settings in abig way, have these
conversations, strengthen thepeer support system, because
with knowledge, they becomeaware that all these are ways
(18:37):
you can address, that there isorganizations that actually help
people who are going throughthese challenges. And as a
community, we can also supporteach other in that way. They say
information is power. And it'sreally important that we go in a
big way in the underservedcommunities and have these
conversations.
Christey (18:53):
Absolutely, My goodness. And are they receptive
to your awareness raisingcampaigns, because obviously,
they're used to thinking thatit's stigmatized, or it's
criminalized, or for all of thereasons that you've listed? It's
a kind of shameful thing to bedepressed or feel mentally
unwell. So when you come in anddo your awareness raising
(19:14):
campaigns and say that it's partof the human condition? What
kind of responses do you getfrom people?
Bright (19:19):
We usually are very strategic in the way we engage
communities because we realizethat some of them already have
really strong beliefs on certaintopics and issues. And so we
take a multi sectoral approachwhen you go into a community
first. We want to work withlived experience persons, who
are the people who are affectedfirst of all. And we train them,
(19:41):
we raise awareness among them,and we empower them to be voices
of change or peer supportchannels in their own
communities. Secondly, we go tothe second layer now of
stakeholder engagement. Andthese stakeholders are the
powerful voices who can actuallyaffect or inform how communities
perceive things and theirattitudes towards things. These
(20:01):
are the religious leaders. Theseare the political leadership.
These are the county government,the local chief. In Kenya, we
even have them there on tar assomeone who has small groups of
families around a small area. Sowe involve them in a stakeholder
engagement and where we haveconversations about these
issues, the most admirable thingis that once you have these
(20:23):
conversations, when we humanizethem, they realize that yes,
true, it's affecting us. And Isee it every day. And we need to
do something about it. So theytake ownership of it. So once
the stakeholders have takenownership, it has a ripple
effect, because the politicalleaders who are very persuasive
or who have a huge hold onpeople, when they talk about
mental health issues, peoplelisten to the religious leaders.
(20:45):
Now, once they become educated,once they know these things, and
they go in their community totalk about these issues. People
become educated and peopleeasily change. So do that
approach where we engage thelived experienced persons
putting them at the center ofour intervention, because they
become a shining light, we talkabout an issue, for example of
someone with mental illness whocannot work, someone with mental
(21:07):
illness cannot be treated. Andthey see someone who they know
in their own community who say,used to struggle with a form of
mental condition. But thissomeone is now empowered, the
petitioning the countygovernment on policy issues.
They are leading the communityconversations when it comes to
mental health. They are leadingsupport groups, they are
(21:27):
empowered to even run their ownbusinesses, they can now work,
it changes perceptions. So it'svery important for us to put
people with lived experience atthe center, and to engage
stakeholders to have that hugeimpact in communities.
Christey (21:39):
Wow, incredible, deep and effective work.
Johanna (21:44):
Could you share with us Bright about your community
wellness centers.
Bright (21:49):
And so after we've engaged the needs of experienced
persons and trained them, andwe've engaged the stakeholders,
we set up a community wellnesscenter. And it becomes very cost
effective because theleadership, the stakeholders
themselves, or the livedexperience, people will say, Oh,
by the way, this is the model,we have a space that you can use
whether the city don't have topay for the space, because it's
(22:10):
a community space, the countygovernment will say, Oh, we have
a resource here that you canuse, we have a field here that
you can put up a structure, andit becomes the Community
Wellness Center. And becausethey own it, they run it
themselves. The peer championsare there every day, on a
rotation basis. People who needmaterial support report to that
place, are they equipped toidentify support and refer if
(22:34):
there is need for referral, andbecause the whole community owns
it in becomes a very easy way tooperate. And so the community
wellness centers have workedvery well. we've piloted
Community Wellness Centers inthree communities now. And we
want to scale across communitiesin Kenya, informal settlements
and sub communities in Kenya.
And it has worked very well, inplaces we've piloted so we've
(22:54):
seen real impact becauseattitudes are changing on a huge
communal level, which isexciting. And people are now
talking about mental healthissues for people who previously
would never talk about them. Menopening up and the people with
lived experience are the oneswho are championing it. So it's
really powerful for community.
Christey (23:15):
Wow, that's transformational. I remember a
similar thing happening in NewZealand because we have a high
suicide rate in New Zealand. Andactually in Christchurch, where
Jo and I are from, there's aparticularly high rate, and I
don't know if you know, butrugby is very popular in New
Zealand. There's a kind oflegend All Black called John
(23:35):
Kirwan who played in the 80s and90s, maybe the era anyway, he's
beloved by a certain generationof kiwi men. And he came out and
said, "I have depression", thisAll Black hero, this tough guy,
and he said, "I havedepression". And it changed so
many people because if JohnKirwan can have depression than
(23:57):
I can have depression, too, youknow, and there had been lots of
other awareness campaigns withinNew Zealand about mental health
and this sort of thing. But whenJohn Kirwan came out, a
respected man who plays rugby,and said he had depression, then
lots of men suddenly startedlistening, and John Kirwan read
this website and men werereading his books, and because
they respected him, and if hehad lived experience, then that
(24:19):
sort of gave them the permissionto say, "me too", and to seek
help, and it opened up theconversation, it sort of cracked
it and it led to a real shift inhow mental health was perceived
in New Zealand. But I mentionedthat because it's similar to
what you're doing, getting theserespected people from within the
communities with livedexperiences to come out and
share their stories to giveother people the permission, you
(24:41):
know, you're not going to bestigmatized. It's okay to say
that this is happening and toget help.
Bright (24:46):
That's the power of storytelling, You're humanizing
these things and talking aboutthem. Because mental health
challenges are sometimes hard totell hard to see. We can be
smiling here. When one of us isgoing through a lot, then you'd
never know. You'd never know.
And so telling the story is veryimportant. That's how we get the
message out. And peopleunderstand because in many
cases, suicide comes as a shockto people, oh, so and so died by
(25:07):
suicide, or they looked so OK. Ijust saw them yesterday, what
was going on? So one, they'renot aware of the telltale signs,
and two, because you can mask itis very hard to tell. And so
that's why the power of tellingthese stories is very important
to encourage other people totalk about what they're going
through and get support.
Christey (25:27):
Absolutely.
Johanna (25:28):
And I'm just curious to hear what kind of traumas people
are facing in Kenya with thingslike the refugee crisis, sexual
trauma, extremist groups, whatare the main kinds of traumas
that people are dealing with?
Bright (25:42):
So I think the very first thing you see is that
mental health challenges stemout of families, with usually
generational trauma fromfamilies violence within
families, for whatever reason,so you can trace this to
somewhere, some trace it to theWorld War, where the grandfather
or someone went to the war andwhen he came back, he had PTSD,
(26:03):
he was violent and all thesethings, or he was abusive, and
then it got transmitted into thechildren and their children's
children. Some of it, can tracedback to the colonial structure,
some of it can be traced back tojust genetic factors. Yeah. And
because people are not aware,they tend to carry it forward.
For example, I grew up watchingmy father and mother fight a
lot. Whatever their mentalhealth situation was, that could
(26:27):
have been normalized for me in away that as a man, now with a
father or husband, I could bemaking out the same balance to
my wife, because it was what wasnormal for me. That's what I saw
growing up. So we see a lot ofthese family generational issues
going along. The other bigissues, of course, the issue of
the economical factors. Manypeople in Kenya, it's definitely
(26:47):
over 50% are living under thepoverty line. So people are in a
highly, highly stressfulenvironment. And this triggers
them in many, many ways. Andbecause they're not aware of how
to deal with what they're goingthrough, it's sometimes seeps
into a form of mental illnesses.
There's issues of traumas nowlike sexual violence, gender
based violence in societies,which is very rampant. Some of
(27:10):
them are cultural, some of themare happening even in cities.
The stats that I've seenpersonally, because I do mental
health work, 70% of the womenI've had conversations with and
who've opened up to me, I'vetalked about the abuse that
went, and this is sexual abuse.
70% is a huge number. And that'sjust people who are opening up
(27:32):
to me, sexually abused aschildren. It happened for most
of them
Johanna (27:38):
Sexual abuse. 70%?
Bright (27:40):
People don't talk about these things. So it's tough,
people keep quiet. When you goto the other side of the male
children, they've also gonethrough these traumas. But for
them, even especially theconversation doesn't happen. For
example, even now, in Kenya, wedon't have any rescue centers
for boys who have been sodomizedor abused. There's nothing to
(28:02):
support such children. So thoseare the patterns we've seen,
economical factors, generationaltraumas, and adverse childhood
experiences like sexualviolence.
Johanna (28:12):
Okay. And what is the context for the LGBTQI?
Community? Are they underincreased pressure?
Bright (28:15):
Yes, yes, indeed. So they are one of the biggest at
risk communities that areaffected by mental health
challenges. At some point, insome contexts, people who
identify as LGBTQ experiencedphysical violence, they
(28:35):
experience this association arebeing disowned by their own
families. And so they have toleave by themselves. Without the
family structure support, it cango really bad for many people.
And so people also get rejectedby the religious leaders. I have
another friend shared with me inthe story that the gentleman who
came to me and said, Look, I amstruggling with my sexual
orientation. And I identify as aChristian, for example, but I
(28:58):
would never talk about this,because I'm a church leader, and
it's causing internal conflict,and now they're thinking about
suicide. So these stories cutacross the LGBTQ community,
because it's a highlystigmatized issue. And what's
funny is people are happy tolive in secrecy. Even some of
them stigmatizing the LBGTcommunity, yet they are
(29:20):
themselves part of thecommunity. So it's a very
complex discussion, but it'shappening, suicide rates among
the LGBTQ community is quitehigh. And the key part of where
we want to also focus on becausea high at risk community, okay,
and if you go across Africa,thankfully for us in Kenya, the
(29:41):
judiciary has been quiteprogressive. So as much as the
society has rejected andstigmatizing some of these
issues, the legal fraternity hasbeen very progressive. If you go
to other contexts, it's muchmuch worse, but it's work that
needs to be done. Awarenesssupport for for LGBT
communities. It is because theyare really affected.
Christey (30:04):
Thank you so much for sharing such heartfelt
experiences with us. The workthat you're doing is so deep and
transformative. And I know it'ssomething that any human being
can relate to. Just because, aswe mentioned, being human is a
little bit traumatic foreveryone at certain times in
life. It's an incredibleachievement to go from six
(30:26):
months in a room by yourself,and planning the end of your
life to everything that you'redoing now. It's really the
phoenix rising from the ashes,your personal story. How do you
stay so bright?
Bright (30:39):
I love that you asked that question. Because when we
talk about mental health most ofthe time, it's usually a very,
very sad story. It's verytriggering story. But there's
also the other side of theredemption, someone who was in a
very bad place, and now they'redoing amazing stuff, or now they
do well, they go to work. And sowe need to also highlight a lot
of these positive stories. Yeah.
Because then people realize,okay, I can do that. I'm also
(31:02):
going through this right now.
But I can get better if I do1,2,3,4,5 things. For me, I
realize that one, and that's thekey approach that we take, is a
strength in the social supportsystems. I have a beautiful
family, having my kids, my wifewho understand my story and who
(31:23):
are very supportive, having alsopeople around you, it could be
friends that identify with you,and they don't judge you and
they open up their space anytimefor you to have conversation.
That's a very key part ofpositive mental health and
sustainable mental health.
Because I usually use an exampleof saying, if I take you to the
best hospital, the best mentalhealth institution in the world,
(31:45):
and you get the right treatment,and you get out of there, and
you fall back into the hands ofa triggering situation, what
does it help? So it's veryimportant to invest in those
social support systems. Anotherthing for me is nature. I love
nature a lot. I take my walks innature, they ground me, they
helped me reset from feelinganxious, just going on a stroll.
(32:07):
And that's free. Anyone can goon a stall in nature, some of
these things that are just free.
It's the music, right now musicis free, basically, you can
listen to YouTube, if you haveinternet. Interacting with
things that help you get intouch with your emotional side.
And lastly, for me throughsport. I play when I can, as
(32:27):
much as I am getting older everyday. I try to go and play
basketball. It helps you youknow, release endorphins. And
yeah, it really helps. Yeah,people don't think that much
about it. But it really doeshelp that you be getting some
physical activity. It helps you.
Christey (32:43):
Awesome, I love that.
I totally relate. I used to havea lot of anxiety on the daily
and when I started doing regularexercise, it made a huge
difference. Anxiety comes andgoes but it's not there daily
buzzing in my head on my neckand my back, like it used to,
and exercise stopped that. Andyeah, same as you, nature, good
friends to talk to. Those sortof quality friendships that lift
(33:07):
you up. And yeah, music,dancing, all of these things
that are free. They are the bestthings in life, aren't they?
Bright (33:15):
Oh, they are. The best things in life are free.
Johanna (33:18):
Beautiful. Well, I can't wait to we get to see you
in person again, Bright, forsome dancing for some strolling
in nature. Although last time wewere in Kenya, we slept in these
tents and there were like lionsoutside so the nature stroll
wasn't quite as relaxing as wethought it might be.
Christey (33:35):
That didn't come the anxiety that day.
Johanna (33:37):
It was actually highly anxiety inducing!
Christey (33:40):
We're so excited to continue on the journey with you
and help you expand your reachas much as possible. So thank
you so much for sharing with us.
We're really happy to hear this.
I feel hopeful.
Bright (33:52):
Thank you so much, Christey.
Johanna (33:53):
Thank you so much, Bright.
Bright (33:54):
Thank you, Jo. I'm really excited and thank you so
much.
Johanna (33:59):
For anyone listening in who's interested to learn more
or support Bright's vision, youcan visit
justpeoples.org/leaders/bright.
You can find these details inthe show notes.
Christey (34:13):
To give you an idea of how much your support could help
Bright to realize his dream ofcreating an African society
where everyone has access tomental health support. Around
$2,500 USD would enable Bright'steam to deliver 12 weeks of
group therapy and psychosocialsupport to 30 vulnerable teenage
moms. And $33,000 USD cansupport an entire community for
(34:36):
a year by funding the runningcosts of a community wellness
center.
Johanna (34:42):
You are such a bright person. Were you christened
Bright when you were born? Or isthat a name that has been given
to you based on your brightness?
Bright (34:53):
I was given the name Bright when I was born. I
remember some friends who usedto joke and say Bright, why did
they call you Bright? You're notthat Bright, no? Yeah, but to
hear you say that my namereflects the way I am is really
nice. It means I'm in a goodspace
Johanna (35:12):
Why Give a Buck? is proudly brought to you by Just
Peoples, an internationalnonprofit that connects givers
directly with local leaders atthe forefront of tackling
poverty in their localcommunities across Africa and
Asia. You can learn more anddirectly support the work of
Bright and other inspiringleaders by visiting
justpeoples.org.
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