Healthy Brains Global Initiative (HBGI)

Garen Staglin, Founder and Board Chair of HBGI and One Mind, will be speaking on October 17-18 at Deutsche Bank in NYC for The REAL Summit: The Intersection of Finance and Mental Health. Join for an exciting event focused on: ✳ Building the mental health ecosystem ✳ Driving more capital in the space ✳ Mental resilience ✳ Building community, or as we would say at HBGI, building "People, Place, and Purpose"

HBGI is thrilled to be partnering with the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH), bolstering our joint efforts to advance the health and wellbeing of women and children. #PartnersForChange 🙌

Check out an excellent presentation below from Jason Grant-Rowles, a member of HBGI's Lived Experience Council, on the importance of #peersupport workers. 👏

July is Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, a critical opportunity to bring awareness to the unique mental health struggles that minority communities face across the globe. To adequately address these struggles, we need to build mental health solutions that prioritize the outcomes that matter to minority communities and are informed by their unique experiences. From our engagement with mothers in Limpopo, South Africa to our work in California with people experiencing homelessness and serious mental illness (SMI), HBGI strives to promote this across the programs we support. #MinorityMentalHealth

Our language is all wrong!!!! It's tough for many of the mothers with babies in Waterberg. In this beautiful country, there is around 60% HIV prevalence, and unemployment (according to the official statistics) is 55%. In communities like Waterberg, such challenges will be concentrated. It was deeply humbling to meet with mothers and health workers and community leaders there last week. It is also starkly apparent that the language and concepts regarding mental health that we bring with all our Western 'expertise'....are all wrong! They simply do not fit the life and minds of these young mothers. To try to replicate Western systems and tools of care, is actually going to make matters worse. We need to build solutions around these women, embedded within their culture, using their own language. We cannot revert to the famous PHQ9 tool to measure their depression and our success in addressing it. We need to discover the outcomes that matter, in this context, and how they are expressed, and then find ways to deliver them - drawing on the resources and expertise that rests in these communities and cultures. The mental health response that is needed across Africa, will not look like the systems we have built in the West. For one thing, no one is going to pay for it in the same way. For another, and more important reason, mind and language and culture are all inextricably linked. The healthy mind of Africa is wonderfully, powerfully unique in its expression and to protect and nurture it will require systems unique to every place - built around each individual and their needs.

Funded by Anglo American Community Health and Wellbeing, The Healthy Brains Global Initiative and Right to Care are working together to improve the wellbeing of mothers and babies in Limpopo Province, South Africa. The team visited the Waterberg district last week to meet with the provincial Mental Health Coordinator, health workers, community members and mothers, to engage on how we can help develop a pilot that maximizes the outcomes that matter for the individuals in the community.

We were honored to host Julia Greenland from the Healthy Brains Global Initiative (HBGI) last week. Julia came to understand better the impactful mental health work we do at Nivishe and to benchmark our practices. This visit was not only an opportunity for us to showcase our efforts but also to explore potential areas of collaboration. We are excited about the possibilities and look forward to working together to enhance mental health services in Kenya. Thank you, Julia, for your time and interest in our mission. #MentalHealthMatters

Congratulations to Charlene and the team at the Global Mental Health Peer Network (GMHPN) on a phenomenal year! 👏 The GMHPN builds capacity among people with #livedexperience of a mental health condition through empowerment, mentorship, and support. GMHPN's Founder and CEO, Charlene Sunkel, is a valued member of HBGI's Lived Experience Council, and has provided us with invaluable support and guidance, including on our work on maternal mental wellness in Limpopo, South Africa. Stacey Ann Pillay

See HBGI's Chief Medical Officer and former Director of LA County's Department of Mental Health, Jonathan E. Sherin, M.D., Ph.D., deliver a keynote speech at the #Sozosei24 Summit below. Thank you to the Sozosei Foundation for a powerful and energizing two days in Philadelphia.

HBGI's Managing Director for Africa, Julia Greenland, will be speaking as a panelist for an upcoming event hosted by Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Mastercard Foundation, and partner universities across Africa on Investing in African Health Opportunities. Register below for an engaging discussion in Nairobi on the transformative potential of investing in Africa's health sector. The event will convene experts in health and finance to unpack where impact lies across the continent. Date: Thursday, 11 July 2024 Time: 19:00 - 21:30 EAT Location: Simba Corporation Aspire Center Westlands, Waiyaki Way, Westlands, Nairobi, Kenya 🔗 Register now: bit.ly/3KCZ2qa