Dr. Dixon Chibanda's 'The Friendship Bench: How Fourteen Grandmothers Inspired a Mental Health Revolution' has won an Oustanding Works of Literature (OWL) Award in the category of First Year Experience.
The book tells the story of how Dixon Chibanda's loss of a patient to suicide, led to a soul-searching journey that resulted in a mental healthcare revolution. The leveraging of existing resources in the community; the compassion and understanding of grandmothers. With fourteen of these wise elders as partners, Chibanda pioneered the Friendship Bench.
"This will restore your faith in humanity. With powerful storytelling and real evidence, Chibanda demonstrates that dedication and community support can change lives without overcomplicating what people need most. This is the kind of book that will turn a campus conversation into a campus culture shift. I couldn’t recommend it enough," read the judges' statement on the literary work.
The book had been featured on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR’s Here and Now.
The OWL Awards honour books that pair big ideas with real-world usefulness. A panel of book experts evaluates each contender for the ones that shape decisions, strengthen teams, elevate instruction, and build shared understanding across communities. To win an OWL is to join an esteemed circle of authors whose work sparks discussions today and measurable change tomorrow.
Friendship Bench addresses the gap in mental healthcare by equipping community health workers, more fondly called "grandmothers" or “ambuya utanos,” to provide primary-level care for individuals experiencing depression or anxiety.
This simple yet groundbreaking concept is already scaling beyond Zimbabwe in six countries and counting. Since 2016, over 280,000 people have received treatment through Friendship Bench, with 78% showing improvement. The impact of grandmothers has been proven in over 100 peer-reviewed publications.