Shamiri Institute

The Mission

Thriving young people.

How It Works

Shamiri's school-based, group intervention is delivered by recent high school graduates (Shamiri "fellows") and helps high schoolers build resilience by focusing on the power of mindsets. Fellows deliver a weekly one-hour class focused on growth mindset, gratitude, and values over four weeks. Students complete group, take-home assignments in between. Supervisors oversee fellows, while any serious mental health cases are referred to clinical specialists.

The Dream

The government delivers and pays (potentially with some financial contribution from parents) for Shamiri’s mindset-focused group intervention across all public schools, so that all youth in Africa thrive.

Why We're In

We think Shamiri has a simple, affordable solution that could scale across public high schools in Kenya and beyond. Using lay providers makes it well-suited to Africa’s shortage of professional psychologists and psychiatrists. They take research seriously, and their evidence is strong—if anything, their study design likely underestimates impact. At just $7 per student in their own implementation—and potentially much less for government delivery—it’s a solution we believe government, or a mix of government and parents, could afford at scale.