I like to see someone like Tom Osborn, the founder and CEO of the Kenya-based mental health non-profit Shamiri, as a personal inspiration. Which – if you pay attention to his biography – seems a bit odd.
Osborn, 28, grew up in Nyabera, a 400-person village in Migori County, Kenya. He lived there until he was 14, at which time he moved to Nairobi (a city about 11,000 times the size) for high school. Growing up, Osborn wanted to be a writer, but felt like he couldn’t because of societal stigmas, particularly among men. During our Zoom interview last month, he explained the acronym “DELL,” a narrow definition of success instilled in him at a young age. Educated Kenyans can choose to be a doctor, engineer, lawyer, or loser. So as an aspiring writer, Osborn felt like his dreams weren’t good enough – and they had to change.
Who would expect that someone who grew up in rural Kenya would have so much in common with a Jersey (practically New York) girl like myself?
In actuality, we have overlapping passions. We both care deeply about equity in the mental health space. The problems in both of our health landscapes have led Osborn and I to work to bring voice to the voiceless and help connect young people to mental health resources.
When Osborn was about my age, his mom was diagnosed with a respiratory tract infection. He felt compelled to do something about it and decided to pursue an entrepreneurial career. During his undergraduate degree at Harvard University, Osborn took a psychology course. It didn’t take many classes to realize that some of the issues he was having could be attributed to poor mental health. He was depressed socially, he said, and began to understand that the idea of mental health were much bigger than just a “word studied in a class.”
Osborn then began to focus on mental health advocacy and what it would mean to bring this knowledge back to his own home in Kenya. His passion for mental health equity and helping the greater community brought him to establish the Shamiri Institute in 2018. Now, Osborn has given TEDX Talks and won several awards, including Forbes 30 Under 30, a global listing of the brightest young entrepreneurs and leaders.
It’s amazing to have changemakers like Osborn in the space, especially given that in lower-resource regions in Africa, 1 in 2 young people struggle with their mental health. But Osborn’s success has not been without roadblocks – one of which is cost. Osborn mentioned how costly it is to treat mental health disorders. Those who aren’t wealthy, which is the majority of people, can’t just freely access mental health resources. Consequently, he stated, families of lower-income backgrounds cannot get the proper help that they need.
“Your socioeconomic status can be a risk factor to mental health,” said Osborn. “Let's say you get depressed and you have to spend money to treat depression. It lowers your income and it can lead you to be poorer, because [...] it inhibits you from going to work or going to school or actively participating in school. [...] Then if you're also born into a low socioeconomic status, you’re more exposed to risk factors that can make you depressed. It's almost like this inevitable cycle.”
Additionally, Shamiri was very difficult to set up - and not just due to stigmas. Osborn explained that using existing infrastructure to give people access to resources is extremely problematic. For example, in Kenya, there aren’t enough hospitals or therapists to serve those who need help. Osborn is circumventing this by working with peer counselors, college students, and other individuals to do therapy for high school students.
But Osborn doesn’t want people to take these barriers as an excuse for silence - if someone has mental health issues, they should reach out.
There are two things we can do, said Osborn. “There are simple interventions that we can do for ourselves by ourselves. [...] We can practice gratitude, for example. We can try to develop a growth mindset. ”
Mental health advocacy doesn't have to be complex. There are so many simple ways to shine light for others and help each other flourish.
Tom’s second note is more of a reminder: “Mental health issues are more prevalent than it seems. And it might seem like it's only us who are going through this struggle, who is going through this suffering, but there are a lot of us and you can find a community. You can build a community. You’re not alone. You need to believe that you’re not alone.”
One of the few beauties of struggle is that it inherently comes with a community – others are struggling, too. And while struggling isn’t something to romanticize, the communities that it creates can help us become stronger, healthier, and more successful versions of ourselves.
I, too, struggle with my mental health. But over time I realized that I am not alone. Like Tom, I have a passion for advocating for mental health and making sure that other people get the resources that I have been able to get. Just to empathize with someone and help them realize that they are not alone is so incredibly vital.
Right now I’m at that point in my life where I have to figure out what I want to do and who I want to be. I keep asking myself the questions: How can I be the best version of myself out there? What impact do I want to make? I guess I’ve always thought that an impact has to be this huge and lavish thing, when really it’s the little things that stick out. Something so simple as picking up trash, holding the door for a stranger, or walking in the park with an old man - can be so incredibly impactful.
From learning about Tom’s story, I would say I now have a better understanding of what it means to truly “trust the process” Even just an idea, a passion, or a goal of some sort; all are little steps into what the future holds. Tom didn’t become the CEO of a company overnight, he began to develop his ideas when he was younger, right around my age. Practice makes progress; the tunnel eventually shines with light. Dreams don’t have to be crazy to be important and to be attainable. The process takes time.
Something that particularly stuck out to me when speaking to Tom was his closing words of advice, “Sometimes you have to knock on 10 doors and only 1 of them will open.”
Whether it’s pursuing a passion, attempting to understand oneself, or advocating for others, everything takes time and persistence. It’s okay to not achieve every goal. And it’s okay to not be okay.
“We're all quite similar in the end.” - About Time
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