1
Get started
Psychoeducation about depression. Naming what’s happening. The first small activities.
The programme
Five short sessions, one peer, a phone you already own.
The programme is delivered through WhatsApp. Each week you receive a small set of readings, audio messages, and short activities, and your peer checks in with you twice. There are no clinical sessions, no logins, no waiting list.
Peers are not therapists. They are people who have lived through depression themselves and trained for six weeks in how to listen, how to follow the programme, and when to refer onwards.
The five sessions
One session per week. Each takes roughly twenty minutes to read and ten minutes to talk through with your peer.
2
Get active
Behavioural activation — the link between what we do and how we feel. Building an activity list.
3
Beat obstacles
Tools for stress and rumination. Working around the things that stop the work from working.
4
Get together
Rebuilding connection with people. Small acts of reaching out. Repairing what depression took.
5
Keep it up
Warning signs. A plan for staying well. What to do if it comes back, because for many people it does.
About the peer who supports you
The peer assigned to you has had a depressive episode themselves, usually a few years ago, and now feels well enough to support someone else. They are paid for their time. They speak your language. They check in with you each week — once mid-week, once at the weekend — and read the same material you do.
They are not there to diagnose, prescribe, or run therapy. They are there to make sure you don’t do the programme alone, and to tell their supervisor if anything they hear worries them. That supervisor is a qualified clinician.
The thing that helped was not the worksheets. It was that someone was waiting to hear how I’d got on. — Participant, Beirut cohort, 2024
The relationship lasts the length of the programme. If you want to continue talking with someone after that, your peer can help you find local options.
If you are in crisis
This programme is not for emergencies.
If you are having thoughts of ending your life, or you are worried about someone close to you, please reach out to a crisis service in your country. Your peer is trained to refer you, but they cannot respond in real time.
Lebanon — Embrace1564 · embracelebanon.org
Egypt — Behman08008880700
Zambia — Lifeline933
International — Befriendersbefrienders.org