In Kenya, a Catholic Worker for Those with Mental Illness

Japheth Obare was twenty years old in 1995 when he had his first psychotic episode. He didn’t know it at the time, but it was the start of a long struggle with paranoid schizophrenia.

He wound up in the hospital, and eventually received a diagnosis: “They said I had cerebral malaria,” Obare said, “but they do that when they don’t know, because there are no professionals to diagnose you.”

It took ten years for him to receive the correct diagnosis. It was a turning point for him; finally, he could understand what was causing his symptoms and seek effective treatment. Analytical by nature—he has worked as a bookkeeper and software developer—he began to educate himself about his condition. In the course of that education, he also learned about the stigma and discrimination other people in his native Kenya experienced because of their mental illness.

Obare is a deeply spiritual person who has been involved in several different Christian ministries and has long wanted to devote himself to spreading the Gospel in a social context. He began to think about how he might connect his own illness and his faith to help others also suffering severe mental illness.

That’s how he eventually formed the Catholic Friends of (the) Mentally Ill, or CFOMI, with ten other people also experiencing mild to severe mental illness. Originally founded in 2016, the group decided to affiliate with the Catholic Worker Movement in 2021, becoming only the second Catholic Worker community in Africa–and the only Catholic Worker community anywhere run by and for people with mental illness and their allies.

The group runs outreach programs that reach about 100 people every month in Siaya, Kenya, a town of about 33,000 people located about 400 kilometers (250 miles) northeast of Nairobi and just east of the border with Uganda.

I spoke with Obare by Zoom in September 2023, shortly after finishing my interviews with Michael Sekitoleko of the Uganda Catholic Worker. Unlike Sekitoleko, Obare was soft-spoken and somewhat reserved. Still, he was happy to speak about the challenges of living with mental illness.

“There’s a real stigma around it, and it’s also a real struggle to access resources” in Kenya, he said. “It’s been a very intense life.”

The Journey from Stigma to Community

The difficulty Obare had getting a diagnosis, much less care, isn’t unusual. A 2016 National Institutes of Health report cited a “dramatic shortage” of mental health resources in Kenya. Many people experiencing psychotic symptoms seek out traditional faith healers rather than mental health professionals.

The situation is similar, if not worse, across the African continent. According to the Centers for Disease Control in Africa, more than 116 million Africans were estimated to be living with mental health conditions prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, with very few of those receiving treatment. Mental illness is often a taboo topic, the organization says, and is sometimes associated with superstitious practices like witchcraft. As a result, many people with mental illness face discrimination.

That was the case for Magdalene, one of the members of CFOMI. Orphaned at the age of two, she began manifesting symptoms of bipolar disorder as she entered her teen years and was disowned by her adoptive parents at the age of thirteen. She lived on her own in the bush, stealing food from local farms to survive.

Fortunately, Obare’s friends and family supported him, even during his worst episodes. He has also drawn on his Catholic faith to help him through the dark times.

After his first psychotic experience in 1995, he began getting more involved in the Church, volunteering as a catechist in his local parish for several years before getting involved with a U.S.-based missionary organization called Youth with a Mission, attending three of their training sessions from 2000 to 2005. He also volunteered with Kenya Children’s Homes, an orphanage, in 2003.

In 2005, he enrolled in the accounting program at City College of San Francisco. It was there that he had his third major psychotic episode; this time, he was hearing voices. It was this episode that finally resulted in his diagnosis with paranoid schizophrenia.

With treatment, things stabilized enough for him to continue his schooling. Once again, though, he invested his free time into volunteering, this time with San Francisco Network Ministries, a Christian organization providing housing to homeless families and safehouses for women leaving prostitution.

After graduating in 2005, he returned home and started his own part-time evangelization ministry, Oasis of Mercy, while working as a bookkeeper. Then, in 2015—twenty years after his first episode—Obare had another serious psychotic episode. He moved back home so his family could become more involved with his care.

“That’s when I started organizing a group, because there wasn’t any support around,” Obare said.

He began gathering a group of ten people, many of them also affected by mental illness. Given the lack of mental health resources in Kenya, he looked overseas for help and guidance.

Eventually, he found a sympathetic reception in Deborah Conner, who at the time was executive director of the British Columbia Schizophrenia Society in Vancouver.

She received a “passionately worded” email from Obare asking for help. His email wasn’t the only one she received from East Africa that week; two other individuals had also contacted her for help. She set up a Skype call with all three.

“During our meeting, it quickly became apparent Japheth was looking to help others with mental illness, despite his own needs,” she said in an email.

His “servant-led orientation” left a deep impression on her, and after some further communication, she sent him bylaws and programming information from the British Columbia Schizophrenia Society.

“She basically taught me how to organize,” Japheth said. “She gave us a lot of information, and she gave us hope as well.”

The group originally incorporated as the Schizophrenia Society of Kenya, but Obare wanted to find a way to bring his Catholic faith into the mix, too. He researched how the group could become a lay apostolate within the Catholic Church. Then, much as he had looked for assistance from another mental health advocacy organization, he sought out another, more established Catholic organization to provide a vision and practical guidance.

After hitting some dead ends, he discovered the Catholic Worker online.

“I went through the Aims and Means, and I was really wowed and excited about the kind of thing the group is talking about, because that’s how I view the world, too,” Obare said. Like Sekitoleko in Uganda, the Worker’s emphasis on social justice and the works of mercy was a major draw.

He pitched the idea of becoming a Catholic Worker to the rest of his group, and they agreed. That’s when they became the Catholic Friends of Mentally Ill, or CFOMI.

Bringing a ‘Harambee Spirit’ to Working with the Mentally Ill

CFOMI members don’t live together but draw on the Kenyan tradition of the “communal home” to organize their community. The tradition of the communal home emphasizes resource sharing, mutual aid, intergenerational relationships, a fluid concept of family as extending beyond blood relations, and group-mediated conflict resolution. Communal homes reflect the Kenyan value of “Harambee spirit”—pulling together for a common purpose.

Obare lives with his mother, who has opened her home to the group. Unlike many Catholic Workers, CFOMI doesn’t provide overnight hospitality or drop-in services; instead, it focuses on its mission to “make life better for the severely mentally ill.” Educating the public about mental illness, advocating for better mental health services, and building relationships with people experiencing mental illness remain at the heart of the Kenya Catholic Worker’s mission.

The small group runs several outreach programs on a weekly schedule.

On Fridays, for instance, they conduct Project Furaha, a program that the group has run in partnership with Siaya County Referral Hospital’s inpatient psychiatric unit since 2019.

“We visit the patients and have psychosocial programs together,” Obare said. “We also build relationships with them and cultivate strong comradery with the intention of continuing our relationship even after they have been discharged from the hospital.”

Building ongoing relationships with people suffering from mental illness is the heart of CFOMI’s mission.

Although Siaya is lucky to have an inpatient psychiatric unit, Obare said, much more could be done to improve mental health services. Typically, the hospital does a basic medical review of the patient, prescribes some medication, then releases the individual without a plan for ongoing care.

“There’s no therapy there, so people end up relapsing,” he said. “We’ve seen the areas that they’re lacking in, like follow-up and case management.”

CFOMI has attempted to fill that gap, opening a case file for each person they contact so they can provide better care over the course of an ongoing relationship. Neither Obare nor other members of CFOMI are licensed therapists or psychologists—although Obare recently completed the World Health Organization’s QualityRights training to become a certified mental health advocate.

But, as countless other Catholic Workers have realized over the years, you don’t need to have a degree in order to make a big difference in the life of someone struggling with mental illness.

“The biggest challenge you face as a mentally ill person is meaningful relationships,” Obare said. “You get isolated so much, so if you could get good help through medication and counseling and you have a group of people around—you know, it could be your family, friends—then many times, you’re okay, but if you’re isolated, you start having a hard time.”

That’s why so many of CFOMI’s activities are relational: organizing support groups, soccer games, “or, you know, just interacting, having coffee together and stuff,” Obare said.

Sometimes, the group’s first contact with someone suffering from severe mental illness comes through the mental health advocates it has trained in the county’s rural villages.

“The advocates get to know the people in the area and those who are suffering, and they get in touch with us,” Obare said. “We get to know them where they live. We encourage them, educate them, and even educate the people they are living with. We also get to know areas where they’re struggling; if, for example, the pressing need is medication…if we have the funds, we subsidize their medication.”

The group does these “Boma Program” home visits—about thirty in a typical month—on Thursdays.

On Tuesdays, the group runs its Elimisha Jamii (“Educate the Community”) program in Siaya County schools; the program reaches about 70 school children every month, seeking to educate them about mental health issues.

The group attends Mass together at Anyiko Catholic Church on Sundays and gathers again on Wednesday to pray and fast for the success of the ministry, Obare said.

Obare regularly updates his Canadian mentor on the group’s work. Conner, who now works as a transformative/integrative coach, said she has been impressed with Obare’s “intelligence, passion, and commitment” and the “significant impact” CFOMI has made, despite its limited resources.

The story of Magdalene, the young woman who had been kicked out of her home because of her bipolar disorder, is one example of that impact.

‘What God Is Doing Here’

After spending some time roughing it outdoors, sympathetic neighbors organized to help her, finding her work as a maid so she could have a place to live and support herself, Obare said. The woman who employed her had her own history of mental illness and referred Magdalene to the Siaya County Referral Hospital, even offering to pay for her medication.

“When we first met with Magdalene in (the) SCRH psychiatric unit, she was somewhat shy and felt really embarrassed by her illness,” Obare said. “This is due to the stigma still attached to mental illness. We finally had a breakthrough with her, and she joined CFOMI as a member and loved it very much.”

The group continued to visit her at home even after she was discharged, helping her better understand her illness and providing supportive friendship.

As her condition improved, her employer enrolled her in a dressmaking class, and after marrying at the age of twenty, she and her husband opened a dressmaking shop. She now has three children and “is doing comparatively fine,” Obare said.

“She regularly attends our activities and is quite happy about her family,” he said. “She never thought God could be so kind to her after having the kind of past she had.”

There have been other success stories, other people who have either recovered or found a stable, satisfying life, like the close friend of Obare’s who moved to a larger city and is now learning a trade.

There are sad stories, too, such as the three people involved with the group who have died, including one who might have lived, with access to better care.

Like all Catholic Worker communities, CFOMI’s core community has waxed and waned over the years. With the deaths, and some of the original members leaving, the community is smaller now than at its outset.

But Obare, like his fellow Catholic Worker in Uganda, hopes to see the group grow, and possibly be replicated in other places. Like the Uganda Catholic Worker, though, the lack of funding is a major constraint.

“I think in Africa the biggest challenge (for Catholic Workers) is resources,” Obare said.

Aside from an annual gift from Conner, Obare pays for most of the group’s expenses—including purchasing medications for the people he serves—out of his own earnings as a freelance app developer. (He also raises and sells pigs.)

“We’ve been praying about (the money),” he said. “Things have been falling into place slowly, and I believe that in about five years, we’ll be much more stable.”

And like his counterpart in Uganda, Obare would like to connect with Catholic Workers “in the West,” exchanging newsletters, traveling to visit other communities in person, and perhaps partnering with Catholic parishes in Canada or the United States. The group has hosted a few foreign volunteers, but Obare believes being more connected to the wider Catholic Worker Movement would help the Kenya Catholic Worker endure, even when he is gone.

If such relationships do develop someday, the benefit will be mutual, he said.

“People in the West are so kind; they will love to be part of what God is doing here in Africa.”

You can contact Japheth through the The Catholic Worker in Africa.