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During the seminar De-stigmatize, De-colonize: Mental Health Through Local Arts in Nairobi’s Slum for Harvard MBB, Tom Osborn presented the preliminary results of the impact of Pre-Texts in reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety among the youth population. The results were obtained through a Control Trial with 235 students in Kibera. |
 Preliminary Results of PT’s Impact on Mental Health in Kibera, Nairobi |
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Ted Talk“We are shaping the future by building a world where young people, anywhere, can actualize their life outcomes. We are doing this by making mental health affordable, personalized, and community-driven.” In August 2021, Tom Osborn shared the story of Shamiri Institute with Pre-Texts on the TED main stage in Monterrey, California. Enjoy now the full video. |
The Pre-Texts project in Kenya has reached over 300 adolescents from Kibera, a slum in Nairobi, working in 2 schools. In partnership with Shamiri Institute, our African team works to deliver arts based intervention to these youth. This year, at the end of the study, we hope to use the findings to include Pre-texts as part of the Shamiri toolkit to help reduce anxiety and depression symptoms among adolescents. We are planning to work with the Teacher Service to run workshops for teachers soon and we completed our pre-registered clinical trial; findings to be sent imminently.
Tom Osborn, our African director, has launched a Pre-Texts workshop with teenagers, after training facilitators and refreshing with them. They are doing day 2/5 then once a week for the whole of the next school semester.
One of the most surprising things was yesterday when we were asking the text questions and the group of freshmen hanged their questions and their English teacher was like freshmen can’t ask these questions, they are not that advanced.
Depression and anxiety are common worldwide, disproportionately among poor adolescents. Therefore, design and delivery of effective interventions is a global public health priority. By consensus, traditional psychotherapy presents structural barriers while advances in psychological sciences note that effective approaches support wellness. Our interdisciplinary research explores how a non-clinical art-based intervention can improve adolescents’ clinical profile of self-esteem to generate positive cascading effects on their mental health.
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This year is an eventful one for our Kenya team. We are gearing up for two projects in Kenya. In the first project, we are training recent high-school graduates as Pre-Texts facilitators. These facilitators will be assigned to three high-schools in Kibera—a large urban slum where nearly 300,000 people live in an area the size of Central Park. In our second project, we are collaborating with a renowned Kenyan Doctor, Prof. David Ndetei, on a project to gauge the public health outcomes of Pre-Texts on local communities in Kenya. In the coming months, we look forward to updating you on our progress.
The project “Adolescent Depression and Anxiety in Kibera: Arts Literacy as Intervention” was awarded $50,000 in the Faculty Award from “The Mind Brain Behavior Interfaculty Initiative” at Harvard University. This award will support the project between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022.
On May 10th, we had the first session of the Pre-Texts Facilitator Training for 22 high school students (18 to 22 years old) in Kenya. After graduating, these students will facilitate Pre-Texts workshops in after-school programs in low-income schools in urban slums in Kenya. The project is led by our Africa Regional Director, Tom Osborn.
Pre-Texts Facilitator trainees
In preparation for the training workshop for our facilitators in January, we conducted a team building exercise in Kenya led by our Africa Director, Tom Osborn.
A preliminary Pre-Texts workshop was held at the Nairobi Arboretum in Kenya on Friday, January 17th, 2020 and included the participation of teachers from several local schools including State House Primary School and Jabali School. There was also participation from local artists Joan Atieno and David Thuku. Both artists have been teaching art to young Kenyans for quite some time.
The workshop was led by Tom Osborn, as part of a pilot program that will pave the way for a full course Pre-Texts workshop later in the year. The participants of the workshop were able to share their views at each stage of the process, stating that it was an enjoyable and engaging experience that they would be able to immediately implement with their students.
A follow up workshop was held on July 17th and 18th, 2020.