Shamiri Information

Shamiri means "thrive"—and our mission is to build a world where young people can thrive by providing effective mental health care at scale, starting from Africa and reaching worldwide. Today, almost 1 in 3 young people (ages 10-24) struggle with mental health problems globally. Yet in many places around the world, fewer than 1 in 10 receive treatment. Traditional care and prevention models are failing. They're prohibitively expensive, depend on scarce professionals, and rely on overburdened or non-existent infrastructure. In response, we've taken a different approach to closing the treatment gap. Shamiri's model is a "for-youth-by-youth" approach that expands the provider pool through task-shifting, emphasizes brief and effective strengths-based interventions, and brings care into communities where young people are. Young people (ages 18-24) deliver group sessions, supervised by semi-professionals, with psychologists and psychiatrists handling escalated care. We are Africa's largest youth mental health provider, serving 100,000+ youth every year. Since 2021, we've reached 185,000+ youth, trained and meaningfully employed 3,000+ providers, and demonstrated that a different approach to youth mental health is possible—and works. Our model has emerged as one of the world's most cost-effective youth mental health models at just $7-10 per youth—over 20 times cheaper than traditional therapy. We're reimagining what mental health care should look like—accessible, affordable, community-embedded, and built for scale from day one.