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On March 8, International Women’s Day, Grand Challenges Canada features women innovators who are helping other women to overcome the struggles and issues they face. Vandana Gopikumar is the co-founder and Managing trustee of The Banyan. Lakshmi Narasimhan  is Research Associate with The Banyan. Both of them lead a project under Grand Challenges Canada’s Global Mental Health program that offers alternative living spaces in urban and rural communities for women living with moderate-to-severe mental disorders and intellectual disability, who otherwise face homelessness or long term institutionalization. In this blog, Vandana and Lakshmi recount the stories of two women who are benefiting from the unique support provided by this innovation. Suhasini (*) remembers the first time she experienced what she calls ‘losing her mind’. It was the end of the Summer in Rajasthan,…mental health. The intervention aims to provide pathways for rehabilitation of people in institutional spaces, improve their quality of life, mental health outcomes and community functioning, while promoting human rights. These homes are spread across rural villages and in urban areas, in the vicinity of The Banyan’s other services. Women live there as part of…

“The early days of venture capital remind me very much about today. There is change in the air. People want to do meaningful things – not just financial. The world can't continue to function as it is now.” [caption id="attachment_10606" align="alignright" width="196"] David Cameron speaks at the Social Impact Investment Forum at the G8. Photo…only one – see Ben Thornley’s take-aways from the forum.   Prime Minister David Cameron opened the forum, declaring that “Social investment can be a great force for social change on the planet. It can help us to build bigger and stronger societies.” Of course, he was preaching to the converted but his speech was…role of foundations, donors, development finance institutes (DFIs) and governments to increase the number of impact investments. In particular, there was a push for foundations to step up and take more risks. DFI’s need to be catalytic and bold in terms of their positioning in the ecosystem. Governments need to focus on building a pipeline…Policy Collaborative (IIPC) and the Global Impact Investing Network. I am intrigued to follow the development of this exchange; if it’s user-friendly and accessible to all, then sign us up! The need for transparency was a continuous theme of the forum and this learning exchange would be a great step forward for the sector.  …will continue to build our pipeline of bold ideas, and to structure and implement deals that strike the appropriate ‘impact investment’ balance. We will also continue to promote the strengths and role of Canada in this space, informed and influenced by the knowledge we draw from our results and community stakeholders. Finally, we will be…

The new Sustainable Development Goals represent a historic opportunity to address mental health as a global development priority. For the first time, world leaders have recognized the promotion of mental health and well-being, and the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, as health priorities within the global development agenda. While this growing recognition is a significant step forward, the challenge that we face is substantial. Studies have shown that a mere 10 percent of people with mental disorders in the poorest low-income countries…engaging in therapy, as compared to the control group. Now, with the support of Grand Challenges Canada and scaling partners, the Friendship Bench intervention is being scaled up to 72 new clinics in the cities of Harare, Gweru and Chitungwiza, and is being integrated into a Médecins Sans Frontières mental health program to treat 14,000 people…

…lives have been improved and more than 15,000 metric tonnes/year of sanitation waste safely removed Nairobi/Toronto, November 7, 2022— Fresh Life, a Kenya-based, social enterprise that works to make safely managed sanitation in low-income urban communities accessible and affordable, is this year’s winner of Grand Challenges Canada’s third annual Rotman Innovation of the Year Award,…late Joseph Rotman. Mr. Rotman was founding Chair of Grand Challenges Canada, and his family has generously supported this award in recognition of Mr. Rotman’s unfailing support for global health innovation. The Award honours an innovation that has had the largest sustainable increase in lives saved or lives improved over the past year. Janis Rotman,…society. Fresh Life’s model symbolizes Joseph Rotman’s vision for innovation for impact. Using a unique market-based approach to stimulate demand for improved sanitation has contributed to a significant volume of waste being removed from communities that would otherwise have been dumped untreated into nearby rivers and waterways. The Rotman Family warmly congratulates Fresh Life on…gaps and build resilience against the effects of climate change on the human health and wellbeing of underserved communities. Seed grants (to establish proof of concept) of up to CAD $150,000 are available for innovations that seek to demonstrate evidence of real-world impact through addressing climate-sensitive health risks over a 12- to 18-month period. Funds…

…& Melinda Gates Foundation. This blog was also published on Impatient Optimists. In the decade since Bill Gates kicked off a new movement in Grand Challenges innovation for global health and development, we have made a lot of progress and learned many lessons. Successes have been achieved and many partners have joined – these developments will be covered elsewhere. In this blog, we want to zero in on the next major barrier to success and how to overcome it. In our view, this barrier is optimizing the path to scale in a…innovations that should move forward to be able to access the attention and resources needed to achieve scale. You can think of this as an innovation pile up at proof of concept. One solution to this problem could be a global innovation marketplace to accelerate the quantity and quality of innovations transitioning to scale in…

Mental health challenges contribute to over 10% of the global disease burden, three-quarters of which occurs in low- and middle-income countries. LGBTQIA+ youth are more than twice as likely to face mental health challenges, including depression, anxiety and substance abuse, than their heterosexual counterparts. Recently, four GCC-funded innovators from the Global Mental Health portfolio spoke to the GCC team about their work providing mental health and support services for LGBTQIA+ youth in their communities. The Raahat Project, SiyaFanaFana (SameSame), The Sexual Rights Center of Zimbabwe, and Out LGBT Wellbeing are helping to uplift effective LGBTQ+-focused innovators…and elevated levels of community violence and backlash. For example, even recently when running queer mental health workshops in universities, their team was asked not to put up a pride flag. Folks at the Raahat Project are resolute in their commitment to confronting mental health challenges, and the stigma around queerness in India. Their goals…spoke about their newly created organizational partnership and planned priorities for the future. SameSame, also known as SiyaFanaFana, is a South Africa-based organization created by queer product designers, software engineers and clinicians, which uses tech-based solutions to address mental health challenges faced by young, queer people. The Sexual Rights Center in Zimbabwe was founded in…

Micaela Collins is co-principal investigator on the Stars in Global Health project "Mothers’ milk pasteurization for Bangladesh garment workers." The project’s principal investigator is Dr. Sabrina Rasheed, a breastfeeding and infant nutrition expert working out of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh. World Breastfeeding Week 2015, from August 1 to 7, will mark the 22nd anniversary of the Mother-Friendly Workplace Initiative (MFWI). Conceived by the World Breastfeeding Association, the campaign rightly positions the combination of women’s productive…It Work! – indicates that there is still a great deal of work to be done before working mothers the world over can be provided with truly supportive work environments. [caption id="attachment_20169" align="aligncenter" width="565"] Micaela Collins with Bangladeshi garment factory workers[/caption] The magnitude of the problem is no more apparent than in the developing world,…after sitting at room temperature for several hours or overnight. Eventually, we settled on pasteurization. The process, long used by human milk banks, kills viral particles and significantly impairs the growth of bacteria. There is only a small body of work on the benefits of breast milk pasteurization (as milk banking fell out of vogue…

Ms. Jocelyn Mackie and Dr. Karlee Silver to serve co-Chief Executive Officers TORONTO, September 19, 2018 – On behalf of the Board of Directors of Grand Challenges Canada (GCC), Chair Guylaine Saucier today announced that Ms. Jocelyn Mackie and Dr. Karlee Silver have been appointed as co-Chief Executive Officers. Their appointment is effective immediately. “Innovation is the defining DNA of Grand Challenges Canada and we have opted for an innovative approach in both the model and the individuals we have selected to lead this organization forward through its next stage of growth and transformation,” emphasized…Challenges Canada has supported a pipeline of over 1000 innovations in more than 80 countries. Grand Challenges Canada estimates that these innovations have the potential to save up to 1 million lives and improve up to 28 million lives by 2030.  Grand Challenges Canada is hosted in Toronto at the Sandra Rotman Centre at the…

…and Tropical Medicine and the Mental Health Innovation Network, can be found here: ‘Friendship Bench’ tackles mental health and HIV in Zimbabwe and beyond. “It was so hard for me. Before the Friendship Bench I really struggled.” – Mrs Wyeni, service user “[Through the Friendship Bench] I learned that I can fix my problems with support from my family.” – Mrs Munyaradsi, service user   Sitting under a tree next to the Western Triangle clinic in the outskirts of Harare, Zimbabwe, it’s hard to imagine that the joyous circle of singing and dancing women and men around me…Lay health workers, known as Golden Ladies or ‘Grandmothers’, are trained to offer problem-solving therapy to people who are referred to the benches by clinicians. They receive up to six counselling sessions with the Friendship Bench Grandmothers, including one home visit and, in some cases, referral to other health or social services, or income-generating activities.…