In a cozy corner of Sussex, something quietly magical is taking root: a simple wooden bench, a warm conversation, and a “grandmother” with time to listen. It’s called the Friendship Bench, and it might just be one of the kindest mental health ideas to cross the globe.
Born in Zimbabwe in 2006, the model was created by Professor Dixon Chibanda who saw, long before most, that “the answers to the global mental health crisis do not lie in more diagnoses of disorders or prescriptions for medications.” Instead, he turned to an unlikely but powerful force: the compassion and wisdom of grandmothers.
“I came to realise that while not everyone can see a mental health professional, most people have access to a vital untapped resource: the care, compassion, empathy, and wisdom of grandmothers, the unsung heroines of the world,” Chibanda said.
Now, thanks to Dr. Nina Lockwood, a research fellow at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, the Friendship Bench is finding a new home in the UK. With a little British twist, of course.
“In deference to the British weather,” Dr. Lockwood explained, “the Sussex benches will be placed not outside, as in Zimbabwe, but in indoor areas such as libraries, church halls and community spaces.”
These aren’t ordinary benches. They’re safe spaces where anyone feeling anxious, depressed or lonely can sit down and talk, no judgment, no rush, no cost…just a brief appointment. The lay counsellors, affectionately called “grandmothers” and “grandfathers,” receive just two weeks of training. Yet their impact is enormous.
A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that people who spoke to a Friendship Bench “grandmother” saw an 80% reduction in depression and suicidal thoughts, and a 60% boost in quality of life. Six months later, most clients were still symptom-free.
Mebrak Ghebreweldi, a co-founder of Diversity Resource International and one of Sussex’s first trained “grandmothers,” puts it beautifully:
“If someone comes to us with stress, we have the time to talk to them until they tell us they’re living in one room with their four children – so the problem is actually housing, and we help with that. Or young people might come and say they’re depressed, but after we’ve gone deeper, it turns out they’re unemployed, so the problem is they haven’t found work, and we can help with that.”
“GPs don’t have time for those long conversations,” she added. “They’ll just prescribe something for the headache and the depression. By unnecessarily medicalising them, the client is disempowered and that can actually make things worse.”
That gentle patience is key to what makes the Friendship Bench special. Appointments aren’t rushed. Participants meet weekly for six to eight weeks, talk through their struggles, explore solutions, and check back in.
Dr. Lockwood said, “It is interesting to see a model founded in Africa travelling west… We urgently need to adopt agile, alternative ways of working.”
And the timing couldn’t be more urgent. In the UK, about one in six adults experienced moderate to severe depression in 2022. But stigma and long wait times, up to 18 weeks in some areas, can prevent people from getting help when they need it most.
Since its founding, the Friendship Bench has reached more than half a million people across cities like New York, Washington, Doha and Amman. With support from the World Health Organization, it’s proving that healing doesn’t always come in the form of a pill or a formal diagnosis. Sometimes, it comes on a wooden bench, in a quiet room, from someone who simply listens.
As Chibanda reminds us, we’re all facing “an excruciating global mental health epidemic” with depression, anxiety and loneliness on the rise. But in a world that often feels too busy to care, the Friendship Bench offers something wonderfully radical: time, empathy, and human connection.
And maybe, just maybe, a cup of tea.
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