Our Projects & Impact
Driving Mental Health Innovation Through Lived Experience Leadership
At PDRO Kenya, our work is rooted in action — transforming powerful ideas into real-world impact across Kenya’s mental health landscape. We focus on uplifting youth, championing rights-based care, and integrating lived experience into every layer of advocacy, research, and recovery.
Climate Resilience & Mental Wellness Initiative
10,000+ Trees Planted | Youth-Led Green Therapy Activities
We recognize the healing power of nature. Through our climate resilience initiative, we combine environmental restoration with mental wellness by engaging youth in:
Tree planting campaigns
Nature walks
Community gardening
Environmental therapy sessions
This project not only supports ecological restoration but also offers therapeutic benefits through connection with nature.
Community Lay Counselor Training
248 Youth Trained | Locally-Embedded Mental Health Support
We empower young people with lived experience to become mental health advocates and first responders in their communities. Lay counselors are trained in:
Basic psychosocial support
Crisis response
Active listening and referral skills
WHO QualityRights principles
They serve as the front line for mental health support at the grassroots level.
Peer Support Group Program
248 Peer Members Engaged | Recovery-Focused Interventions
This project fosters healing through peer-led group therapy, incorporating:
Group discussions
Creative arts (art, dance, and play therapy)
Nature-based therapy
Peer mentorship
These safe spaces empower participants to rebuild their lives with confidence and support.
The Lived Experience Advocacy Network
Offers extensive training in personal storytelling for advocacy, equipping individuals to safely and effectively share their lived experience in ways that promote understanding, reduce stigma, and drive meaningful social change.
The Network also maintains a bureau of trained lived experience speakers and experts who are available for speaking engagements, public forums, trainings, and advocacy events. These individuals use the power of personal narrative to influence systems, shift perceptions, and advance inclusive mental health and social justice conversations
Book a Speaker
We provide access to trained lived experience speakers for conferences, workshops, organizational trainings, panel discussions, and awareness events. Our speakers bring authentic, powerful, and professionally guided lived experience perspectives that inspire reflection and action.
68 Youth Trained in Advocacy Storytelling
We transform personal experiences into advocacy tools through Living Proof Advocacy training. Participants learn to:
Share their mental health journey with impact
Challenge stigma through public speaking
Influence community and policy conversations
Stories shared have reached schools, health forums, national events, and media outlets.
Youth Prevention Education Program
4786 Adolescents Reached | Mental Health Literacy for Ages 14–19
Lived experience leaders educate high school-aged youth on:
Mental health basics
Coping strategies & emotional regulation
Early signs and intervention pathways
Destigmatization through storytelling
Our sessions empower teens to care for their own mental wellness and support peers.
Peer Researchers & Lived Experience Advisors
We partner with researchers, organizations, and individuals to integrate lived experience into mental health and psychosocial research and program design.
Peer Researchers are individuals with lived experience who contribute directly to research processes, including design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation. They ensure that research is grounded in real-life understanding and conducted with communities, not about them.
Lived Experience Advisors provide expert input into research protocols, program design, and implementation frameworks. They help ensure that policies, programs, and services reflect the real needs and experiences of people with lived experience.
Through these partnerships, PDRO strengthens ethical, inclusive, and participatory approaches to knowledge creation, recognizing lived experience as a vital form of expertise in shaping research, policy, and practice
Featured Study:
“Understanding the Landscape of Psychological and Social Interventions for Anxiety, Depression, and Psychosis”
Commissioned by Wellcome Trust in collaboration with:
Queen Margaret University • IGHD • CASS • MHPSS.net
QualityRights Youth Training
60 Youth Trained in WHO QualityRights Framework
We promote dignity-based mental health care by equipping youth with knowledge and advocacy skills to:
Promote rights-based practices
Engage in service delivery transformation
Monitor and influence mental health policy
Participants become champions of ethical, inclusive mental health systems in their communities.
Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP)
A non-clinical, structured tool that helps people define what wellness looks like for them, identify early warning signs of distress, and develop personal strategies for maintaining balance, resilience, and recovery.
It is grounded in the belief that people are experts in their own wellness and are best placed to lead their own recovery journeys.
Through WRAP, individuals are supported to:
- Identify personal wellness tools and strengths
- Recognize triggers and early warning signs
- Develop daily wellness and coping strategies
- Create crisis and post-crisis plans based on their own preferences
- Strengthen hope, self-awareness, and personal agency
15 people trained through WRAP
Partners & Supporters
We are proud to collaborate with organizations that believe in the power of lived experience and youth-led change:
Our Partners (Past & Current)
We acknowledge both current and past partners who have supported our mission to advance lived experience–led mental health systems, build community resilience, and promote inclusive, rights-based approaches to wellbeing
Our Affiliations
We are connected to global organizations and networks working in mental health innovation, capacity building, and lived experience–led
transformation.
