Improving Mental Health and Well-being in Kenya

Cross-posted from Comic Relief's Funding Webpage

Global Mental Health is one of four priority issues under Comic Relief’s funding strategy. Under DFID’s Disability Inclusion Strategy, supporting people with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities has been highlighted for special focus. To address these priorities, UK aid have matched £2 million of public donations from Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day 2019 campaign, to create a £4 million programme to invest in mental health in Kenya.

In order to advance the agenda on the neglected issue of mental health, Comic Relief and UK aid are looking to raise the profile of the rights of people with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities in Kenya. This call for proposals is aimed at organisations working to ensure people with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities can access the support they need, and feel empowered to speak out and able to live free from stigma and discrimination. 

Applications must be led by organisations originating in Kenya. Applications from organisations working in partnership with others, especially with representative groups, are welcomed. 

Scope

Proposals should respond to one or both of the programme’s aims and may focus efforts at community, county and/or national level:

• Tackle stigma and discrimination associated with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities. Funding might include research to understand the context of stigma and discrimination in communities in more depth, co-ordinated public awareness campaigns, promoting mental health awareness in the media, raising awareness amongst generalist healthcare workers about mental health, advocacy work with people who can champion mental health as an issue, holding government to account for existing commitments, investing in models of prevention that could be replicated and using creativity to tackle stigma and discrimination. 
• Improve access to quality mental health services in line with human rights approaches, for people living with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities. Funding might include research to better understand the gaps, examples of good practice, developing standard operating procedures, promoting quality assurance and monitoring, review of current policies and practice, professional development and support for practitioners, training at community level, support for new collaborations, support for groups advocating for quality services, community support for livelihoods and social integration to support adherence to care and mainstreaming interventions. 

Funding:

• We expect to make between 8 - 12 investments of £100,000 - £750,000.
• Funded projects will need to start-up in April 2020 and run for between 24 - 42 months.
• Funding can be used to cover specific project activities and core costs that can be evidenced as directly related to the proposed project and its contribution to the programme’s aims.
• We expect all applicants to consider how funding could be used to strengthen their organisational capacity (and that of their partners) and to include budget dedicated to building their capacity. This may be for specific activity costs or allocations to core / indirect costs. A minimum of 10% of grant budget should be dedicated to capacity building activities. 
• Safeguarding of vulnerable adults and children is a priority for Comic Relief and DFID so you may want to include funding to build your capacity in safeguarding.

More information and application form here: https://www.comicrelief.com/funding/funding-opportunities/improving-mental-health-and-wellbeing-kenya