Introduce mental health education in the Kenyan primary and Secondary education curriculum. Weaving mental health topics into curricula can increase awareness and help destigmatize seeking help. Adolescents and young adults make up 60% of the Kenyan population. 10.3 % of Adolescents and young adults suffer from a mental health issue. Most of the adults with mental illness have traumatic childhood wounds of abuse, neglect,  abandonment, codependency, enmeshment, learning  disabilities and developmental challenges that go unnoticed and undiagnosed as children, and this leads to adults living with mental illnesses. The introduction of mental and psycho education (not guidance and counseling) will increase diagnosis, self awareness, safe space for speaking out, and prevent escalation of childhood behavioral and emotional disorders.

The topic of mental health needs to be normalized. If not, young people will not talk about their mental health, nor seek the help they need for anxiety, depression, or thoughts of suicide or self-harm. Just as a student would seek a dentist for a toothache or an optometrist for glasses, students must feel safe to seek mental health services. But normalizing doesn’t come by holding an occasional assembly, or having a one-off lesson that’s never repeated — nor backed by trusted adults. Instead, students need to feel some consistency and even some repetition, which can come by weaving mental health support into classroom curricula.

Kenya has a Mental Health Taskforce that is mandated with reforms to improve mental health care. In 2021, Governors committed to their crucial role of delivering mental health services to their populations – in order to meet national and global mental health targets, including relevant SDG targets. The Taskforce on Mental Health recommended that mental illness should be declared a National Emergency of epidemic proportions, to prioritize mental health as a priority public health and socioeconomic agenda. The Taskforce also recommended the establishment of a mental health commission and happiness, to advise, coordinate and continuously monitor the status of mental health, and report on the annual National Happiness Index.

This petition therefore, asks that all relevant duty bearers and decision makers as part of these reforms, include mental health into school curriculum. 

Founder- Aviva Consultants                  

Muthoni Muhu