An Ear, a Heart, and a Bench – Saving Lives One at a Time
It all started with one question: “What can I do?” So much wrong and out of whack in the world; so much suffering; too few remedies to solve the ever-increasing problems. But individuals across the globe are responding, one by one, with surprising and heartwarming solutions.
One Man
There’s Morris. Lonely himself, and isolated after his wife, Edna, died, he was alarmed that the kids at his bus stop never seemed to laugh, joke around, or play like children. Instead, they sat hunched over and fiddled with their phones.
One girl especially caught his eye because she looked so empty. Broken hearted. Because his wife had always complimented him on his ability to fix things, Morris went home and thought about this situation. After digging out his grandson’s old tablet, he spent hours figuring out the mysterious electronic language of the younger generation.
Three hours later, he had a basic knowledge of QR codes and printed a simple sign. “Scan me. Tell me your story. I’m listening.” He taped the QR codes to the bench and waited. A week went by. Crickets. Morris persisted. And then a boy who looked to be about 12, scanned the code and started typing. “My dad’s sick. Mom works nights. I’m scared. But I drew a dragon that breathes glitter. It’s in my pocket.”
Small Kindnesses
Morris bought glitter glue and left it under the bench with a note that read, “For the dragon artist. Keep shining – Morris (the bench friend).”
The next day, as Morris sat on the bench, a folded paper airplane with a glittery dragon drawn inside landed alongside him with a simple message. “Thanks. Dad’s smiling today.” That encounter seemed to be the icebreaker as more kids started coming to the bench and pouring out their troubles to Morris, the kindly 78-year-old man.
One girl confessed to feeling sad because she was bullied and called a ‘robot’ simply because she liked coding. Morris left her a book, Dreaming in Code: Ada Byron Lovelace, Computer Pioneer. The next week she left cookies as a thank you and a note, “Robots like sugar too.”
The most remarkable thing was that as Morris reached out the children seemed to follow suit. Kids started sitting together, helping each other, even offering tutoring.
To his dismay, Morris suffered a fall and broke his hip, which required a two-week hospital stay. When he finally made his way back to the bench, he found it covered in drawings and notes, even small gifts like a tiny, knitted coaster “for your tea.”
There was a photo of a group of kids holding a sign that read “Morriss’s bench: We see you.” Now 12 bus stops in town have listening benches run by teens, and retirees, and others who want to help. They’ve even planted marigolds to cheer up the area around the bench!
Story and image posted on Facebook, August 18, 2025 on ‘Astonishing’.
On another continent, Blessing was a person lost in depression with no one to turn to for help. A 45-year-old HIV positive woman, she was the mother of two children, and currently broke. Her husband had moved to South Africa to find a job, but then met another woman whom he married, and so stopped sending money home to his wife and children in Zimbabwe.
Unexpected Resource
As one of 12 psychiatrists in Zimbabwe, Dixon Chibanda was familiar with the plight of so many citizens of his country who spiraled into depression each year. He knew there just weren’t the resources to deal with the growing epidemic in his country.
Then he hit upon a novel solution. Though money was scarce, grandmothers were plentiful, and these women held a wealth of life experiences and wisdom. Thus, the idea of the Friendship Bench, manned by grandmothers was born.
The volunteers are trained in talk therapy to enhance their listening skills and empathy to just be present to whomever showed up. Sitting on benches in, or on the grounds of healthcare facilities, or quiet places in villages, grandmothers sit and wait for people who would like to join them and talk.
When someone sits down the grandmother will politely say, “I am here for you. Would you like to talk?” Their job is to listen compassionately and help patients gain the confidence to find their own solutions to their problems. They gently offer counsel to patients with common mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety, but those with more severe problems are referred to mental health professionals.
Safe Spaces to Talk
Dr. Chibanda says, “What I have learned over the years of doing this work is when we create space in our communities for people to feel comfortable with being vulnerable, that’s when healing begins.” He goes on to say that it is not necessary to be a psychiatrist or a psychologist to help because the only requirement to effect healing is empathy. At Friendship Bench, we describe ‘expressed empathy’ as the ability to make people feel respected and understood.
“It generally takes six sessions for a client to start to feel some relief but surprisingly, they often find solution in three or four sessions.”
Dr. Chibanda notes that their success rate in terms of a patient’s recovery is more successful than the traditional medical models of treatment that skilled doctors and health professionals offer. The results of a randomized control trial were surprising.
The researchers split the people with depression into two groups and found after six months those who had seen the grandmothers had significantly lower symptoms of depression compared to those who underwent conventional treatment. The results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2016.” Read more here: How a bench and a team of grandmothers can tackle depression.
A Bench and Kindness
From Zimbabwe to Viet Nam, Kenya, to Washington DC, lives are being transformed on the ‘Friendship Benches’. A grass roots endeavor that relies solely on the skills, experience, and kindness of older local women who are happy to help troubled neighbors.
Globally, more than 300 million people suffer from depression according to the World Health Organization, and depression is a prime contributor to the 800,000 suicides each year most of which occur in developing countries.
D. Chibanda notes: “…the most important thing about healing is you don’t need to be trained as a psychiatrist or a psychologist. You do need some basic principles, but every human being has an innate ability to express empathy given the right circumstances and the right environment.”
Just the practice of listening with kindness and making eye contact can encourage people to open up and share what’s troubling them. To date, over 820,000 people have been helped by the grandmothers, who are willing to listen to anyone suffering in their communities.
At one time Morriss would have been a candidate to seek out the grandmother’s help. Depressed and lonely he felt useless, sidelined by life. But he followed his heart and his wife’s words that echoed within. “Morriss, you fix what’s broken.” And so he did. One heart at a time and started a local movement.
For those who want to get involved, The Friendship Bench is expanding globally with theFriendship Bench in a Box, which is really a DIY toolkit that will enable anyone anywhere in the world to start a Friendship Bench.
In the United States a similar initiative is taking place. For info contact: www.helpageusa.org/friendshipbench.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
How do you feel about offering help to people you don’t know? Does the idea inspire you or scare you? Would you feel comfortable sitting on a bench and offering help to strangers? Or perhaps in a library or hospital setting? Please add your thoughts to the conversation on how individuals can offer healing into our troubled communities.
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