Bridging Gaps: Youth Well-Being and Mental Health in Kenya's Urban Landscape

What if the fragmentation of society is creating a crisis in youth well-being? Join us as we welcome Winnie Orodi, the Head of Curriculum Involvement and Monitoring and Evaluation at New Dawn, Kenya, who unravels the deep-seated challenges young people face in Kenya's urbanizing landscape. Winnie takes us through the psychosocial support programs she leads for preteens and teenagers, touching on crucial topics like identity, life skills, and sexuality. She reveals how the breakdown of extended family structures, traced back to colonization and the onset of formal education and urban work, has left many young people feeling disconnected. Winnie also sheds light on the diverse backgrounds of the students at New Dawn and the mentorship programs aimed at bridging community gaps.

We tackle the critical gaps in mental health and education in Kenya, focusing on the lack of standardized certification for specialists and the challenges in diagnosing learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Winnie emphasizes the necessity of equipping facilitators with the skills to support young people effectively and the importance of stable, long-term mentorship programs that can foster trust and community. Discover the broader need for accessible and comprehensive health services, the infrastructure required to support these initiatives, and the impact of environmental factors like floods on children's well-being. This episode offers a profound understanding of the ongoing efforts to improve the mental health and well-being of Kenya's youth amidst environmental and social challenges.

Transcript

Neil Milliken: 0:01

Hello and welcome to AXS Chat. We're delighted to be joined today by Winnie Orodi, who is the Head of Curriculum Involvement and Monitoring and Evaluation at New Dawn, Kenya. Welcome, Winnie. By the way, there's no Deborah today, but she sends her love. So tell us a little bit about yourself and the work that you're doing, because it sounds really interesting. So over to you.

Winnie Orodi: 0:26

Thank you so much, Neil and Antonio. My name is Winnie Orodi . I'm a psychologist. That's what my training is in. Currently I'm working with preteens and teenagers, developing curriculum around psychosocial support. Psychosocial support and, to delve even deeper, it's psychosocial support around identity, life skills and sexuality, especially in this era today, when young people are really trying to understand who are they. Because the society is very fragmented we don't have aunties and uncles, because in the Kenyan context, in the African context, our sense of identity is really solidified from our families and our communities. With that being very fragmented, I find young people feeling a little lost. So that's what I do. So we have programs that run over the holidays and during the weekends, organizing camps, and, of course, issues to do with mental health always come up because, again, identity is very closely related with individual sense of well-being and who they are and just understanding who they are. I think that also speaks to well-being, just understanding who they are.

Neil Milliken: 1:47

I think that also speaks to well-being. So I'm fascinated by your first comment about the fragmentation of society and the sort of social breakdown. It wasn't something I necessarily associated particularly with Kenya. We know that the global north, as people have moved and migrated to cities, that the nuclear family has kind of unraveled. Is the same kind of thing happening in Kenya, or are the breakdowns in the loss of the aunties and uncles and extended family due to other causes?

Winnie Orodi: 2:19

Yes, I think there's a lot of urbanization in Kenya. Most people have moved to urban centers, to Nairobi. I live in Nairobi and the children that the program runs in Nairobi, the New Don Kenya programs, the mentorship program, so you find a lot of them. You exist in an estate where you hardly know your neighbor and this became very obvious especially in the thick of COVID when we couldn't travel back. You know, stay connected. So, um, people don't do not live with their extended families like we used to in the past, so people are resorting to the internet for information. You know you don't have aunties to really and uncles I mean, you can reach out to them but it's not the same. And again, with capitalism, everyone is too busy, so young children have to figure out their sense of identity and just where they belong. And again, with school, you're overly scheduled. When you're coming back from school you're at home in the apartments, so it can become very tricky for young people.

Antonio Santos: 3:30

Can you somehow help us here, somehow dating when this problem started in terms of urbanization in Kenya? Is there something that you can tell us about, just for us to understand the context better?

Winnie Orodi: 3:45

Hey, did I get that question right? Yeah, could you repeat the question.

Antonio Santos: 3:50

Can you tell us about? For the context, can you tell us when the problems with urbanization really started to take off in Kenya?

Winnie Orodi: 4:00

Okay, okay, I think this has been a long time coming. I would trace it back to colonization. Really, we had white settlers living here, so that fragmentation started then. We did not have boarding schools before, okay, we did not have schools. So you can see, with boarding schools, people moving to certain areas where the schools were set up, where the missionaries settled, and that's how communities started moving, getting really fragmented. So you'd find a husband leaves the family in central Kenya, moves almost to the Rift Valley to go for work, rift Valley to go for work. So I think it came with colonization and just people starting to do formal work as opposed to the traditional farming and all that. So with education and people moving to find work in cities. I think that's how it gradually started.

Winnie Orodi: 5:01

And the, the secondary schools that were national schools. National schools are schools that they have resources, they are recognized, they have good, good um, they just have access, they have resources. Those were the national schools and those schools were few. They were few and spread out within the counties in kenya. We called them districts back then. So you'd find students have to move to boarding school, to the night schools that were in different locations from where they grew up. So I think that gradually and with urbanization, I think right now we are decentralizing and trying to equip every county so that people can have resources in the different counties, that you don't have to come all the way to Nairobi. But that is recent, before that everything was central in Nairobi.

Antonio Santos: 5:52

Yes, Can you somehow give an idea about the profile of the students that you are serving? Yes, Okay.

Winnie Orodi: 6:25

So in Newdon, kenya, like single mom or single dad, lots of substance use, very economically disadvantaged. Actually, the school is in a slum in Nairobi, mjuwa Uhuruma, direct translation for home of mercy. So it's an informal settlement with the houses are made of iron sheets. Especially right now, with the floods and everything, a lot of them actually lost their homes and we are trying to find some sort of donations linking them with Red Cross Kenya to get the support that they need. So that's the kind of context that they come from. So all that they pay for in that school is just for the meals. The rest it's donor funded. And then there's the other half. So I told you, there's the secondary school and then there's the mentorship program. In the mentorship program we work with children from affluent homes.

Winnie Orodi: 7:30

Yes, so we are trying to link, to use this, to use let me not use we are trying to engage this other community to see how they can support this. So there are still teenage children. Those who go to international schools are still teenage children, those who go to international schools, but they come to community work in the Njiwa Horomo where these children, where the school is, come from. So there's a lot of cross-pollination that happens. I think that's how we've been able to sustain ourselves, because these are parents who have means and they have access. So during the holidays they come give back as one of these projects. So I don't know if that's clear.

Neil Milliken: 8:14

Absolutely yes.

Neil Milliken: 8:17

And I think that it hopefully will help to build great cohesion in society as you get the groups mixing, because it's often, you know, you get the segmentation of the wealthy wanting to stay away from, from areas where the underprivileged are living and learning. So it's great that you're bringing those together through the mentorship program now. Now you said you're a psychologist background and you're working on psychosocial issues. What kind of issues are you addressing with your students? Obviously, we know that there are significant determinants of well-being based upon the sort of social standing of, and and the wealth or lack of it of of young people. What are the sort of things you're encountering and how are you addressing those? Uh for, for the young people that you work with, okay.

Winnie Orodi: 9:19

So the two populations have um different problems, but of let's start with the school. The school, of course there's the economic disadvantage. You know they are coming from, they, they do not have access to basic needs. You find the girls are struggling with self-esteem and confidence because they do not have access to things like water, you know. So you find it's one room with father, mother and three children. So this girl, there's no running water, there's hardly any electricity and the electricity that is there is one that is tapped, it's not managed well. So sometimes with the floods and everything, power goes out. There's not so issues to do with self-esteem because these girls, some of them, of course, they've started their monthly period, so some of them find it hard to come to school because they don't have access to water to shower and freshen up, you know needs. So one of the programs we've actually done with the other group now it's teaching them how to create, how to make recycled sanitary towels that can be reused. So it's one of the projects that we do with the school. So the confidence and self-esteem and just not being able to be outspoken, poor interpersonal skills that we see in this other community, it's because of the kind of context that they come from.

Winnie Orodi: 11:04

With this other population. You know, again, there's broken families, especially after COVID, a lot of the children that we were working with went through their parents, went through separation. So you find there's this struggle around the anxiety around just a broken home. You don't know how do I deal with this. You know where do I place myself? Again, we are living in a technological era. Issues to do with body image, peer influence, and some of it parents do not understand because the children are really being influenced by social media, as opposed to previously where peer influence was the peers who are currently here. There's also challenges with children. That's neurodivergent. I have a few students who have been diagnosed with ADHD, autism. They're on the spectrum, so there's just challenges around interpersonal skills, communications, but again, the cases vary based on the different groups. Currently we have around 800 students enrolled in the mentorship program and in the school program. We have the school program, the one in Njiwauguruma. We have around 250 students between Form 1 to Form 4.

Antonio Santos: 12:32

And what type of support do students with disabilities have at New Dawn?

Winnie Orodi: 12:40

Okay, so again, this is the Kenyan context.

Antonio Santos: 12:44

Yeah, of course, of course, yeah.

Winnie Orodi: 12:46

Yeah. So what we are doing in the curriculum is to equip the facilitators. So personally I do most of the evaluation and just to see, okay, is this working on the ground, what we've developed? Is it translating? But now we train facilitators who now go and actually run small groups, because these 800 students do not all sit together. We have small groups where they meet. So every facilitator has a group of around eight students to work with for a period of around three years. So we equip the facilitators with skills to accommodate neurodivergent children.

Winnie Orodi: 13:27

But honestly, there's a lot to be done. I think there's a lot of learning to be done. I had a training this past Saturday, the 25th, and a lot of them were asking so what do we do? Sometimes parents are not even aware that their children are neurodivergent, so there's a lot of underdiagnosed. People are not. Parents are not aware, first of all, and when they are aware, sometimes they don't want to share this information with you. So sometimes you get to learn from the students that, oh, I have this and the other, and sometimes maybe damage has been done and the other, and sometimes maybe a damage has been done, maybe other children were trying to discriminate or ridicule them, when they're maybe acting out in class or something of the sort, when they've been triggered. Yeah. So I would say we try during the trainings to equip the facilitators to be sensitive, to be alert, but nothing specialised, honestly.

Neil Milliken: 14:27

Okay. So I think attitudes towards neurodivergence have been changing in the West, in the global North, only relatively recently. So I'm dyslexic and ADHD and when I was growing up that was considered a shame and something that people were ashamed of. So it's a few decades back now, but it's not that long ago, so it's not entirely surprising that there's still stigma attack, and there is pretty much everywhere. We're still trying to deal with the stigma of these conditions. So, yes, it's in the Kenyan context, but I think that you ought not to feel too bad that you're behind because we're not that far ahead.

Neil Milliken: 15:20

We're not that well developed when it comes to understanding of neurodivergence and everything else. It's a relatively recent blossoming, if you like, in terms of an industry and understanding that is building up around it. So, um, and I think that the, the, the bio psychosocial model of disability, is a really important element of having that sort of holistic approach to making sure that people are included and it doesn't necessarily have to involve lots of fancy technology or, you know, expensive stuff. I think that helping people understand each other and have that dialogue is really important. So when you have these kids coming forwards and you know they're uncomfortable talking about it. Is this something that you you do in the open or you do individually? Are you encouraging the rest of your cohorts of students to also be part of the conversation so that we that you're destigmatizing these conditions as as part of the sort of daily life of the school and the mentor program?

Winnie Orodi: 16:40

I think, as facilitators, I get to train the facilitators and I think one of the things that we try to emphasize is trying to accommodate differences. Yes, let's try and accommodate people that do not necessarily speak the way we do, that do not articulate online or express themselves the way that we would be comfortable with. It's um, what we are trying to do is actually there's a parent um open barraza coming up, a Q&A with the parents, and one of the topics that we are hoping to address is can parents be at the forefront, you know, equipping other parents on how to be supportive, because I had to deal with a case where one of the parents was trying to tell the child asking the other child why are you in our space and trying to? I have an autistic child and this child really likes a particular some other girl in the group and every time she comes in she wants to sit next to her, and these are the parents that one of the girl that I don't know if this story is coming out clearly.

Winnie Orodi: 17:58

So there's two girls One is autistic, the one that is not is neurotypical went and reported to the mom that I can't come to class because this one girl constantly wants to sit next to me and it makes me uncomfortable, and all that. And the parent, without trying to understand what the issue was, was trying to attack this other girl instead of even going through the parent or the facilitator who's responsible for the group. So a lot of awareness needs to be done, I think, starting from the parents because, again, children tend to imitate what the parents are doing, what the parents are doing. So, creating awareness from the parents and also creating awareness for facilitators for them to be a bit more inclusive in the way they treat children in the group. So I think it's something that we cannot ignore and we really have to be vocal about it when we are training our facilitators yeah, in terms of training facilitators and, of course, seeing that you are the one doing all that work.

Antonio Santos: 19:12

Is there any gap or any topics that you'd like to address? And you feel well, we don't have the resources, we don't have the knowledge. This is something that I'd like to do, but I don't know, but it's just something that I dream with yes, absolutely.

Winnie Orodi: 19:27

I think this okay. The diagnosis is a bit expensive. In my context, very few people are specialists. So, first all, we do not know who. There are people who are parading to be specialists, who are not. So mental health and psychology in Kenya is also very fragmented. We don't have a common body that certifies you know how. In the US they have APA and the British Psychological Association. We don't have a common body in Kenya. So you find people who've studied six months saying, oh, now we can diagnose and do all these other things. Yet at least the bare minimum should be a master's and meet certain criteria before you start dishing out. So the gap is accessibility financially. So there are people.

Winnie Orodi: 20:18

Personally, I think my sister has dyslexia. It's been undiagnosed, she's never been diagnosed. But I can see from the way she reads. You know, she literally tells me these letters are moving. I see the word and I look at it again, especially when I'm anxious I can't read. And I started sympathizing with her after I understood what dyslexia is. But she's never been diagnosed, you see.

Winnie Orodi: 20:43

So the gap is how can the diagnosis be a bit more available? Because also, when you look at the school, where the school from the children who are disadvantaged. A lot of them really struggle with reading, so sometimes I wonder is it because they did not have a good foundation starting out, or they actually have learning disability that has not been diagnosed and the teachers are not equipped to do that? So how can we keep equipping our facilitators to be able to pick out the symptoms? I think that's one gap. And also, what does inclusivity look like? Because even from the language and all that, there's only so much that I can share. I think also that is another gap. And also, how do we have this conversation with parents who are in denial, who do not want to accept that this is what is happening?

Neil Milliken: 21:44

yeah, it's not just parents that can be in denial. I spend quite a lot of time in denial myself, um, so I was interested that you said that your facilitators stay for a three-year period. Um, is that by design, so that they get to know the children well and the children you know build a stable relationship with the facilitators? Because, if I think about my experience through the school system, it's a new person every year, you know, you rotate through and, uh, you know, new teacher every september as the school year starts. So, um, was that a conscious? Was that a conscious choice to, to, to make that a longer period of time?

Winnie Orodi: 22:32

absolutely it really was. And actually how this program started. It started as a an after church program. Yeah, mentorship, you know, to work with these people. So after church the founder would sit with these children who would, who are friends to her daughter. And after a period of time, neighbors wanted their children to be part of this program because they started to notice a difference in the confidence and the way the girls who hung out with this girl of the founder, the daughter of the founder, used to act. And that's how it started to grow and for mentorship to happen, to create that sense of stability.

Winnie Orodi: 23:09

I think three years is a good time. We've tried it and after three years you actually become part of the family. The groups tend to adopt the facilitator. You, you end up being part of the family and you work with them unofficially now beyond the three years, but in those three years then the kids come and tell you this is what is happening at home. I'm really struggling with this, this I can't focus. In school, bullying is happening. I'm struggling with my sexuality and things like that. Then you've created that safe space Because, again, the frequency of meeting is once a month. So once a month if you're to only do it for a year, then it's just yeah, okay.

Neil Milliken: 23:58

And you said you've been training the facilitators. How often do you meet with the facilitators to provide that training and that follow-up? Is that something that happens continuously or is it provided and then you set them loose into the world to do their stuff?

Winnie Orodi: 24:20

No, it provided. And then you set them loose into the world to do their stuff. No, so there's continuous. There's continuous monitoring and evaluation. So the training takes.

Winnie Orodi: 24:25

Of course, there's a criteria that you have to meet for you to be a facilitator. Yeah, we vet you through certain criteria and one, of course, if you have a psychology or sociology background, that's an advantage. You have to be of a certain age group. The younger you are, the better, because you want a facilitator that can relate with the students and feel like this is their big sister or their big brother and they can share. And so, after that initial training, when you get a group and you start working with this teenager or preteen, we meet every six months.

Winnie Orodi: 25:03

So we have activities that are targeted to allow the facilitators to debrief, because, again, the facilitators really go into these children's families. It's a group of eight and the eight take turns hosting each other, so you're really involved. You end up knowing their grandparents, their uncles, their aunties. Essentially, we are trying to recreate that community, because the society is so fragmented right now. You're deliberately creating that small village that will raise your child, you know, because it takes a village to raise a child. So I think that's actually our. What is it a tagline? Our vision let's create that village.

Neil Milliken: 25:50

So you're creating a village in a big city.

Winnie Orodi: 25:54

Yes, we are creating a village in a big city yes, we are creating a village in a big city.

Antonio Santos: 26:00

We're talking about the. We talk about the floods. How do you see the impact of a climate and the environment on children? Is there anything that you have observed it?

Winnie Orodi: 26:12

absolutely. Um. So in the month of schools were supposed to open around 6th, and that's when the floods were raging on. The rains were relentless and schools had to be postponed. Again, a lot of Kenyan high schools are boarding schools. Remember I told you about the history of schools. So schools are supposed to open on the 6th and 5th. At night around 1am.

Winnie Orodi: 26:47

The Minister for Education decides okay, we cannot open schools because floods and some of the schools are actually flooded. There's no roads. I mean, the roads have been blocked. Cars can't transport people to different locations, so definitely young people. The school calendar I think it was delayed by one and a half weeks, so it's been real, clear, direct information. Sorry about that.

Winnie Orodi: 27:21

So children are facing this. We are seeing climate change, the access to food, because again, when you look at boarding schools, they buy food in bulk and stock and right now the prices of food have gone over the roof. That means school fees is going to cost twice as much for people to be able to afford to buy the food to students there. So actually one of the children in the groups that I facilitate just asked can we do something, can we fundraise? So they started a bake sale in school, they're making cupcakes and whatever we are raising. We are going to go to Mjiwa Oroma, where the school is to just donate some blankets and supplies, to see what we can do in our own little small way. But yes, definitely we've been impacted and there's been lots of lives lost. I think we had over 6,000 in East and Southern Africa. Lots of lives and I think we're under-reporting. I don't think we've fully reported on what's going on, because the impact has been drastic.

Neil Milliken: 28:35

So a significant loss of lives and a significant impact immediately, but also it's got to have an impact on their well-being long term, because that kind of trauma quite often doesn't actually sort of surface psychologically until later. So are you planning and putting stuff in place for helping the students cope with these kind of things as part of the work that you're doing?

Winnie Orodi: 29:08

Long term. I don't think that's something we really need to think about. I think we are mostly reacting right now to what's happening, but I think what one thing that I would say we are doing right is having those conversations, because that session we had we were supposed to talk about something else and we're just like, okay, can we pause the curriculum for a minute? And just what is going on? What do you think about this? What can we do to support? You know, and the students were sharing you, you know we had, I know, an uncle whose house was flooded. I know so-and-so. I think just giving that room for them to talk about the impact is a step in the right direction as we try to look at okay, what would resilience look like for these young people post-climate change, this drastic climate change here?

Neil Milliken: 30:09

So, as we're drawing to the end of our time, I'd love to know if you had a magic wand. What would you think if you were able to wave it and get whatever you wanted? What would be the one thing that you would want? That would improve the quality of the services that you're delivering.

Winnie Orodi: 30:36

If I had a magic wand. Well, I'm getting selfish with this magic wand, but OK, let's let me expand my scope of the impact. So Working with children sometimes is a sense of helplessness when you, I think the more. The more I'm exposed to children, the more I realize this. I think the more I'm exposed to children, the more I realize there's just so much need. And I think back to the question that Antonio had asked what is the gap? It's how do we?

Winnie Orodi: 31:21

The one would be to just make it accessible, you know, to services like psychometric analysis. You know, making these things accessible, you know, so that you're not cut off because of finances. You know you cannot access a service because of this, Because a lot of people are suffering because they don't know what's going on with them. You know, a lot of young people go undiagnosed and what we are doing is very surface level first aid. We cannot go deep. So every time anyone presents with a case that we cannot meet, we make a referral, and sometimes a referral means getting a medical cover to be able to do the tests, and that is not very accessible. So the one who go, make these services accessible, that's what Magic Wand would do.

Neil Milliken: 32:04

That's a fair use of the magic wand. Building the infrastructure around psychosocial services and so on would be a good use of the magic wand. Winnie, it's been a real pleasure talking to you. I need to thank our sponsors, amazon and MyClearText, for keeping us on air and keeping us captioned and accessible. Thank you very much. Look forward to continuing this conversation on social media.

Winnie Orodi: 32:32

Thank you so much.