The World Health Organization states that 1 in 4 Kenyans are living with a mental health condition. According to the World Bank, as many as 6.8% of males and 10% of females in Kenya have attempted suicide. Despite this grim reality, there are only about 100 psychiatrists in all of Kenya, leaving a large gap in treatment.
Moreover, access to Psychiatrists is cost prohibitive to most Kenyans. More affordable are the numerous trained therapists and counselors across the country. Still, there are a number of challenges with these services. Firstly, due to stigma, and lack of awareness, most Kenyans are unaware of existing help and often can not travel to meet them in person. Second, many therapists do not have the tools to properly monitor their patients or keep track of wellbeing over time. To address these issues, Amka provides the following solutions:
A digital platform which matches people with therapy services. They can easily access these services over their phones, lowering the cost of treatment and increasing the ease of access.
Useful tools for therapists to manage and better help their clients. During a session, Amka provides notes and insights. After a client leaves, therapists can assign “homework” to clients, such as wellbeing assessments, mood trackers, and behavioral interventions such as meditation and exercise.
Our overall goal is to bring Amka to a broad market where we can connect people with mental health services. Objectives we wish to achieve:
Connecting people with services that improve their mental wellbeing
Training therapists to better support clients
Building a database about how people talk about mental health in Kenya
To achieve our goal over the next 12 months , we will achieve the following milestones:
Build robust measurement tools tracking the effectiveness of therapists on clients’ wellbeing over time. Examples of this are the PHQ-9 for depression and GAD-7 for anxiety.
Screen and onboard 50 therapists.
Introduce tools to help therapists work with clients. This includes a real-time therapist forum, note-taking tools, and ability to assign homework assignments.
Develop a preliminary database for measuring how people talk about mental health in Kenya. There is little understanding of how different conditions are referenced.
