We founded Shamiri Institute to develop and implement scalable solutions that allow young people to thrive and actualize their life potential.
Mental health issues are a global epidemic. Care is inadequate due to structural and systemic barriers, societal stigma, and the inaccessibility of treatments that are often also culturally inappropriate.
Young people—especially those in low - resource regions like Kenya— suffer the most.
At Shamiri, we combine rigorous social science research with deep contextual knowledge of the educational and mental healthcare systems of the communities that we work in to develop and deploy at scale effective and holistic interventions that allow young people, and communities, to thrive.
Shamiri was founded in 2018 by Kenyan entrepreneur Tom Osborn and rising global mental health researcher Katherine Venturo-Conerly at Harvard University. Tom — who grew up in low-income rural Kenya — experienced firsthand the challenges that young people in Kenya face as they seek to self-actualize. Katherine dreamed of making mental health interventions accessible for all. Together they launched Shamiri in three schools in Nairobi’s Kibera slums.
Our approach combines a commitment to rigorous social research and a grassroots approach that honors and amplifies the communities that we work with. Since our founding, we’ve delivered mental health to >11,500 students. Gold-standard field trials have shown that our model works and is cost-effective. The science that informs our work has been published in >25 peer - reviewed journals.