Community Mental Health Incubator - Seed Funding

Mental health conditions contribute significantly to the Global Disease burden, and the treatment gap remains high. All countries are developing when it comes to mental health interventions. We must learn from and with each other, across cultures, how to provide equitable and culturally appropriate mental health care tailored to the needs of the community it serves. Some of the best mental health interventions are designed by community members who know their communities well; however, oftentimes, they lack funding to implement these interventions. On The Move e.V. works with community members in Ghana and Kenya and identifies promising mental health interventions and approaches through a vigorous assessment process. We provide successful applicants with a space and expertise that allows them to design, prototype, test, and iterate their mental health interventions. We also provide seed funding that enables participants of the mental health incubator to collect pilot data that is used to apply for additional (external) funding, which can help with the implementation of the project in the long term.  We partner with stakeholders from all sectors (government, private sector, academia, civil society) for sustainability reasons. 

Previous community mental health incubator participants include the Kenyan NGO Tinada Youth Organization, which is now the leading mental health organization in Western Kenya; Dr. Esther Agbozo, who led efforts to increase mental health knowledge and decrease mental health stigmatization in Ghanaian schools around Accra, and Divine Kporha who, based on a need assessment, designed substance use-related interventions in the Ketu South Municipality in Ghana. 

Importantly, our NGO annually brings about 25 community mental health incubator program participants to Dresden, Germany. In Dresden, the participants can connect with like-minded social innovators, learn about the mental health infrastructure in Germany, and teach German stakeholders about approaches to community mental health care (Ghana and Kenya are particularly strong in community mental health). Remember, all countries (including Germany!) are developing countries regarding mental health, and we need more mutual capacity-building opportunities.