Earth Ancients

“Dixon Chibanda’s beautiful and heroic book will inspire everyone who reads it.”— Johann Hari2025 BookPal OWL Award Winner • As featured on CBS Sunday Morning and NPR’s Here and NowA simple, human solution for loneliness and depressionWhen Dr. Dixon Chibanda lost a patient to suicide, he began a soul-searching journey that eventually led to a mental healthcare revolution. As one of only six psychiatrists in all of Zimbabwe, a country traumatized by decades of conflict, Chibanda quickly realized that millions there were suffering from mental illness with no hope of receiving care. He saw that the only way to narrow this care gap was to leverage existing resources in the community, and one such resource was the compassion and understanding of grandmothers. With fourteen of these wise elders as partners, Chibanda pioneered the Friendship Bench program, a community-driven initiative addressing loneliness, depression, substance abuse, and suicide by fostering intergenerational connectedness. Since then, more than