There are far more grandmothers in the world than there are psychiatrists, and increasing numbers of them are helping troubled people through an elegantly simple solution – psychological therapy they deliver on a bench in their community.

Dixon Chibanda, who works in Harare, is one of 12 psychiatrists who serves Zimbabwe’s 14 million people. He developed the Friendship Bench program starting in 2006, the year after government destruction of houses and buildings left 700,000 people homeless and two million people traumatized.

He was told to survey the psychological impact and then, when he presented the results, told to develop an intervention, even though there were no resources and many professionals had left.