Friendship Bench, UNESCO partner to expand mental health services to 52 Zimbabwe tertiary institutions
The Next Africa Zimbabwe’s flagship community mental health initiative, the Friendship Bench Zimbabwe, has entered a strategic partnership with UNESCO to expand mental health services across tertiary institutions nationwide, marking one of the most significant higher-education wellbeing interventions in the country to date. Announcing the deal, Chief Executive Officer Esther Tumbare said, “We are proud […] The post Friendship Bench, UNESCO partner to expand mental health services to 52 Zimbabwe tertiary institutions appeared first on NewZimbabwe.com.
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Zimbabwe’s flagship community mental health initiative, the Friendship Bench Zimbabwe, has entered a strategic partnership with UNESCO to expand mental health services across tertiary institutions nationwide, marking one of the most significant higher-education wellbeing interventions in the country to date.
Announcing the deal, Chief Executive Officer Esther Tumbare said, “We are proud to announce that Friendship Bench is entering into a strategic partnership with UNESCO to expand access to mental health services for tertiary institution students across Zimbabwe.”
The programme will target 52 tertiary institutions across all provinces, moving beyond isolated campus counselling initiatives toward a coordinated national framework. Tumbare described the initiative as advancing the organisation’s long-standing ambition of ensuring that everyone is within walking distance of a Friendship Bench.
The partnership extends beyond deploying counsellors on campuses.
“The partnership will focus not only on service delivery, but also on influencing national frameworks to integrate health and mental wellbeing earlier in policy formulation,” Tumbare added.
That signals an attempt to embed mental health into Zimbabwe’s higher and tertiary education architecture rather than treat it as a peripheral student service.
The partners intend to leverage existing institutional structures to:
- “Develop scalable national-level approaches.”
- “Establish and strengthen health-promoting campuses.”
- “Integrate mental health into higher and tertiary education systems.”
- “Reinforce broader health system capacity.”
By working through universities and colleges themselves, the model aims to institutionalise support systems rather than create parallel structures.
Founded in Zimbabwe, Friendship Bench has become one of Africa’s most cited mental health innovations. The model trains lay health workers to deliver structured problem-solving therapy in community settings, an approach designed to address the country’s shortage of specialised mental health professionals.
Its expansion into tertiary institutions reflects a growing recognition that student mental health is a structural issue. Across Africa, universities are grappling with rising anxiety, economic uncertainty and academic pressure, while formal counselling infrastructure remains thin.
Tumbare framed the new partnership as systemic reform:
“This is a significant step toward embedding mental well-being within Zimbabwe’s education architecture ensuring students are supported not only academically, but holistically.”
Zimbabwe’s education sector is central to its human capital strategy. By integrating mental health earlier into institutional and policy frameworks, the initiative aligns well-being with long-term workforce productivity and social stability.
The move also underscores a broader trend across the continent where African-developed health innovations are increasingly scaling through institutional partnerships rather than remaining pilot projects.
With UNESCO’s backing, Friendship Bench’s campus expansion could position Zimbabwe as a regional reference point for embedding community-rooted mental health models within higher education systems.
“We look forward to working alongside partners to shape a sustainable, systems-level response for the next generation,” Tumbare said, signalling that the work is only beginning.
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