Madinah Nanyanzi was walking through the alleys of Banda, one of Kampala’s informal settlements when she saw a gathering of women, talking “light-heartedly” to each other under the facilitation of a counselor.

It was an Inter-Personal Group Therapy (IPT) talk, one of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recommended first-line treatments for depression.

“They were speaking with relish and looked extremely happy. I wanted to know what was happening. I was going through a very hard and stressful time,” the 52-year-old narrates.

But that was about six years ago. She settled here to start life over after separating with her husband.

“I was sad, and desperate after divorce. I settled in a zone known for prostitution, and without a job and means of livelihood, I settled for that,” she explained.

With a booming business to cater for the needs of her household, the new Nanyanzi embodies resilience, hard work, hope, and inspiration to countless women in her community, the very society that seemed hostile, all thanks to counseling therapy.

Every year, she spearheads four cycles of inter-group therapy sessions which have helped 1,000 women to recover from depression, the world’s largest single mental health disorder, which accounts for 800,000 suicide deaths annually.

The WHO says depression results from a complex interaction of social, psychological, and biological factors. People who have gone through adverse life events (unemployment, bereavement, psychological trauma) are more likely to develop depression.

Uganda is among the top six countries with the highest number of people living with mental disorders on an African scale. Statistics show that about 1.7 million Ugandans are currently struggling to overcome depressive and anxiety disorders.

Strong Minds is using the Village Health Teams (VHT) system—the first point of patient contact, responsible for basic health interventions within local communities and villages in Uganda’s health structure—to build a network of first responders to depression.

The VHTs are trained in mental health, depression, the concept of therapy, and administration before they are sent to their communities to mobilize and start mass sensitization. Their work is closely supervised by a therapy expert from the organization.

“During supervision, we are always ready to come in and ensure that the community mobilizer is thorough while explaining to the community,” says Prossy Nansamba the organization’s supervisor.

The trained VHTs and community mobilizers cluster community members during sensitization, where they are psych-educated about depression, relating to their existing challenges.

A Needs Assessment Form is then issued to the participants to evaluate their psychosocial needs. The forms are taken by the supervisor for scrutiny and scores are given.

“After sensitization, they do pre-assessment and a person who scores below five is considered not depressed. But those above are regrouped and once they score above 10, they are recruited into therapy sessions for eight weeks,” Judith Bishemimana a mental health facilitator and supervisor at the organization.

The conversation that Nanyanzi overheard on her evening stroll had been between a community mobilizer and women in 2016, when the organization was setting foot in Banda.