Shamiri Institute Raises $1 Million to Expand Character Strength Mental Health Interventions for Kenyan Youths
Funding from Templeton World Charity Foundation will help Kenyan mental health startup to identify strategies to disseminate character-based mental health interventions and investigate the long-term health outcomes of these interventions.
Kenya based Shamiri Institute has today announced that it has raised $1 million from the Templeton World Charity Foundation. This funding will help identify ways of expanding and disseminating Shamiri’s character-based interventions to as many Kenyan adolescents as possible and to investigate the long-term health outcomes of these interventions. Shamiri Institute was co-founded in 2018 at Harvard University by award-winning Kenyan entrepreneur Tom Osborn and rising global mental health researcher Katherine Venturo-Conerly.
“The support from the Templeton World Charity Foundation is truly remarkable for us,” Tom said, “our team’s work has involved developing and testing simple, scalable, and stigma-free mental health treatments that are delivered by lay-providers across Kenya. Over the past three years, we have established that our interventions reduce depression and anxiety by up to 40% — which is comparable to or greater than existing psychotherapies — and are importantly cost-effective. With this new funding, we look forward to identify mechanisms of expanding character strength interventions to thousands of Kenyan youths.”
“With the support from Templeton, we look forward to investigating whether our character strength intervention improves long-term health outcomes and which outcomes it improves. Our work will be one of the first to test the effects of character strength interventions across such a rich range of health outcomes over such an extended period. We look forward to sharing our findings with the world,” Katherine remarked.
About Shamiri Institute
Shamiri Institute is a data-driven public benefit organization that uses cutting edge social science research and a deep contextual knowledge of the communities that it works with to build a future where young people can actualize their life potential. Shamiri means “thrive” in Kiswahili. Because mental health prevents many young people from realizing their life outcomes, Shamiri’s current priority is to develop and implement tools that improve the mental health and wellbeing of Africa’s youths.
Since 2018, Shamiri’s tools have been used by more than 7,500 youths in Kenya. Our tools have led to a 40% improvement in mental health, a 14% improvement in peer relations, and a 3% improvement in academic grades. Learn more about Shamiri Institute here.
About Templeton World Charity Foundation
Humans have distinct — and remarkable — intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual capacities. Templeton World Charity Foundation (TWCF) funds interdisciplinary research on what it means to be human. TWCF also support work to translate discoveries into practical innovations that enhance our positive and distinctive capacities that are at the core of human flourishing and well-being.
Connect:
Website: https://www.shamiri.institute
Email: team@shamiri.institute
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamiri_institute
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/shamiriTeam
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/shamiri-institute/
