citiesRISE Giving Campaign

In recent years, the world has seen immense challenges, from the effects of climate change to conflicts to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 75% of mental health problems start showing up by age 24 - our collective ability to thrive depends on how well we support the mental health and wellbeing of emerging generations. Launched as a multi-stakeholder initiative in 2017, citiesRISE’s approach puts young leaders at the center of mental health transformation and connects them intergenerationally with the people and systems that need to change. 

Too often, youth leaders are funneled into narrowly defined advisor roles. We support young people in channeling their creativity, wisdom, and lived experience expertise in different ways: as innovators, as researchers, as advocates, and in service to their peers and communities.

Here are a few examples:

1. Supported a network of 40 youth leaders in Nairobi (Kenya) to drive advocacy for mental health promotion and community-based interventions, helping shape the Kenya Mental Health Action Plan (2021-2025) with the Ministry of Health, as well as the Nairobi City County Mental Health Action Plan.
2. Partnered with the Bogotá Secretariat of Health (Colombia) and King County Public Health (United States) to support grassroots youth-led mental health innovations (30+ so far) using approaches ranging from mini-documentary series on intergenerational trauma to graffiti to community cooking.
3. Partnered with youth, artists, and researchers to design and test a peer facilitator-driven intervention cultivating gratitude, kindness, and hope in school and community settings in Chennai (India), Nairobi (Kenya), and Seattle (U.S.), now expanding to Cape Town (South Africa) and Sweden (Stockholm).
4. Partnered with young researchers across India, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, and the U.S. to gather and analyze data from 111 interviews and 2,397 surveys with their peers to develop a new cross-context model for how young people engage with mental health science.

Your Support Can Help Us Grow Programs
Our top priorities for 2024 are: 

• Growing our city, regional, and national policy and advocacy efforts linking youth and system leaders in India, Kenya, and the U.S. through the Centered Cities movement (www.centeredcities.org).
• Packaging and digitizing our work on gratitude, kindness, and hope as an accessible intervention that young people can directly take up and spread to their peers and communities.
• Every contribution, however small or large, helps support the youth leaders who are transforming mental health for their peers and for broader systems and society.

All donations are processed in USD. *All donations made to citiesRISE are typically 100% tax deductible in the US.