SHM Foundation is thrilled to announce that 15 community-based mental health initiatives have joined the Ember Partnership Cohort 2025-2026 — the next chapter in our flagship programme, which supports grassroots efforts in transforming mental health support globally. 

In July 2024, Ember invited community-based mental health organisations working in low- and middle-income countries to join its next partnership cohort and received over 1,800 applications from more than 90 countries. 

The overwhelming interest reaffirms what we at SHM have long believed: community-based mental health initiatives are at the cutting edge of innovation – it is not more innovation we need, but greater recognition, support, and investment in the innovative work these organisations already do. 

Over the past year, the Ember team has read, listened, and reflected through in-depth conversations, interviews, and collaborative workshops to shortlist grassroots organisations doing truly transformational work.  

Today, we are proud to introduce the 15 initiatives selected for Ember Partnership Cohort 2025-2026, representing 12 countries from Palestine to Mexico, and India to Madagascar. Over the next 12 months, the Ember team will work alongside these partners to understand their priorities and co-design tailored support that responds to their unique needs and challenges. 

The selected innovators use creative, locally rooted tools — from music, storytelling, mountain biking, culturally adapted WHO models, mobile therapy, to art — to provide mental health support to diverse communities that include rural populations, homeless women, LGBTQIA+ individuals, neurodivergent children, incarcerated youth, young mothers, and displaced people. 

At SHM Foundation, we are proud to support the growth of Ember and thank Vitol Foundation, ICONIQ, Kokoro, and Schooner Foundation for their generous support, along with the invaluable guidance of the Ember Working Group. 

Click here to watch the announcement video. 

Read on to learn about the work of these inspiring initiatives. 

Ember Mentorship Cohort 2025 

ADORE Mental Wellbeing and Care, Myanmar 

ADORE is a youth-led mental health organisation that offers a hybrid online and offline approach that provides peer support, trauma-informed care, safe spaces and healing, catering to local communities and diaspora groups in Myanmar. 

Alternatives Madagascar, Madagascar 

Alternatives Madagascar combines mental health care with life skills, economic empowerment, and sexual and reproductive health services, creating tools for self-expression and increasing access to care to provide mental health support to incarcerated youth, marginalised women and women in situations of prostitution. 

Bwindi Community Hospital, Uganda 

Bwindi Community Hospital delivers counselling, medication, and occupational therapy to vulnerable communities along the Uganda–DRC border, with clinics run by WHO mhGAP-trained staff to ensure accessible, community-based mental health care. 

Centro 32, Mexico 

Centro 32 is a non-profit organisation that provides psychosocial support, counselling and comprehensive services to independent women, children, adolescents and LGBTIQ+ people in contexts of human mobility, including refugees, people displaced by violence, asylum seekers, repatriated persons, returnees and unaccompanied children. 

Centre for Arts-based Methodologies & Wellbeing (CFAW), Pakistan 

CFAW delivers a blend of mental health and arts to support individuals and families navigating psychological stress and generational trauma through services such as therapies, trauma-informed training, and community events in safe, inclusive spaces such as its Wellbeing Hub. 

Centro de Atención a Niños con Necesidades Educativas Especiales  (Centre for the Support of Children with Special Education Needs), Honduras 

CNNEE is a lifeline for children with developmental, neurological, and mental health needs, offering vital psycho-pedagogical support through holistic interventions like early stimulation, teacher training, and equine-assisted therapy in a region where educational inclusion remains a distant goal. 

Dlalanathi (Play with Us), South Africa 

Dlalanathi supports healthy relationships by training caregivers and parents to use play-based and trauma-informed approaches to translate therapeutic practices into structured, community-based programmes—strengthening adult–child bonds and caregiver mental health over the life course, especially in communities affected by trauma, poverty, violence, and generational HIV. 

Golden Vision Society, Nepal 

GVS aims to raise mental health awareness, reduce stigma, and improve access to care in partnership with government bodies, law enforcement agencies, schools, and community healthcare workers, specifically prioritising serving women and children from remote rural areas and people from unprivileged communities. 

Grassroots Transitional House, Kenya 
 
GTH provides mental health and well-being services such as safe shelter, economic empowerment, and gender-affirming psychological support to the LGBTQIA+ community in the rural Mount Kenya. 

Inside Out, South Africa 

InsideOut NPO is a collective of trainers and community workers dedicated to social justice, healing, and transformation, supporting individuals and communities affected by violence and oppression through a people-centred, systemic approach. 

Mata Jai Kaur Maternal and Child Health Centre (MJK), India 

MJK's Kushee Mamta is a rural maternal mental health program that trains women to be community counsellors who provide mental health support to women who are pregnant, new mothers, and those who experience depression, gender-based violence and suicidal thoughts. 

Pedal Project, South Africa 

Pedal Project empowers under-resourced children to overcome trauma and instability through mountain biking, combining physical activity with caring mentorship and therapeutic support to build emotional resilience, confidence, and connection in a safe and joyful environment. 

Um Pouco d’arte, Mozambique 

This organisation provides creative, trauma-informed activities such as translated songs, comic strips, poetry, and spoken words to promote mental health and collective healing through music, art, and storytelling among women and girls experiencing gender-based violence. 

Urja Trust, India 

This grassroots organisation supports homeless young women who have faced gender-based violence, caste discrimination, and mental health stigma by providing shelter, healthcare, employment, education, legal aid, access to civil entitlements, and a trauma-informed, holistic, and inclusive therapeutic approach that nurtures the mind, body, and soul through counseling, expressive arts therapy, and Dance Movement Therapy. 

Yes Theatre for Communication among Youth, Palestine 

Yes Theatre for Communication among Youth uses the transformative power of drama, arts and storytelling to empower children, youth and marginalised communities with life skills, psychological support, and an outlet for creative expression.