We had the opportunity to sit down with Thokozile Kadango, Deputy Country Director and Co-Founder of Sorry I’m Not Sorry, We Are All Sick — a youth-led mental health organisation driven by lived experience. Founded by young people who have navigated their own mental health struggles, the movement is working to create safe spaces, challenge stigma, and connect communities to care. Below, Thokozile shares the story behind the organisation, what drives their work, and how they are imagining the future of mental health support in Malawi. Below, she shares their story, what drives their work, and where they are heading.

Tell us about Sorry I’m Not Sorry, We Are All Sick, what is it and what do you do?

Sorry I’m Not Sorry, We Are All Sick is a growing national mental health movement that began in 2023 and is now a legally recognised mental health organisation.

Our mission is to lead Malawi’s mental health revolution by connecting people to care, empowering communities with knowledge and tools, and building a national movement where mental health is treated as a human right, not a privilege.

We serve youth, frontline workers, and people in distress in rural and peri-urban communities. Our work includes crisis response, psychological first aid, safe spaces, community mental health education, grassroots awareness and policy advocacy.

What led you and the other founders to start this movement?

We are a number of youth who founded this organisation, and each of us has had our own fair share of mental health breakdowns. We said, if we have experienced this, then others across the country are also experiencing something similar.

If we could beat suicidal thoughts and come out of what we were facing, then many people can be helped through our lived experiences.

We saw a gap, Malawi needs safe, stigma-free spaces where people can talk about mental health and feel supported. Many times when someone talks about what they are experiencing, we first judge or laugh at them. That silence can lead to anxiety, depression, and eventually suicide.

Communities understand gender, agriculture and education, but not mental health awareness. So we started this movement to bridge that gap and serve people who are struggling in silence, especially the youth.

We began as a youth-led movement of hope and safe spaces, focusing on suicide prevention and community conversations. Over time, we grew so that we could have structure as a professional organisation and incorporate professionals. Today, our mission is to become a bridge linking communities to professional mental health support across the country.

What has it been like leading a youth-led organisation shaped by lived experience?

Leading as young people with lived experience is both powerful and transformative. We are building from a place of pain and experience. When you have endured depression yourself, you understand what it means to struggle in silence. Even when you have knowledge, you cannot counsel yourself through deep pain. You need others to remind you there is hope after the storm. Our lived experience gives us passion, creativity and boldness. We want to break the stigma we experienced. We respond quickly to crises because we understand what crisis feels like. We are building a culture of empathy and peer support where we sit with people in their pain instead of judging them. It has been challenging but also deeply meaningful. It has given us courage to disrupt stigma and make people understand that mental health is a human right.

From your perspective, what does the mental health landscape in Malawi currently look like?

In 2025 around September or October, there were close to 500–600 suicide cases recorded from January. Most were men, and many were people of productive age. It is very sad to see lives lost like that.

There is improvement, many mental health organisations are supporting government, raising awareness and building capacity. But we still face major barriers. We only have one main government mental health facility, Zomba Mental Health Hospital, which makes services centralised for people across the country from Nsanje to Chitipa.

Many Malawians first seek help from faith leaders, chiefs or traditional healers due to accessibility and cultural beliefs. Stigma and misinformation prevent early help-seeking. Someone may show clear signs of a breakdown, but instead of professional diagnosis, they are labelled “wapenga.”

There is also a shortage of trained mental health professionals. Youth are facing increased stressors like unemployment, trauma and violence.

This is the right moment to ensure mental health is recognised as a human right and that everyone has access to mental health services just like physical health services.

You speak strongly about mental health as a human right. How are you advancing that through policy and advocacy?

Our policy advocacy centres on making mental health mainstreamed and ensuring it is a permanent and protected resource as part of Malawi’s development agenda across all sectors, in health, education and youth.

We should not treat mental health as an afterthought, but prioritise it.

We aim to guide others to structure and protect mental health issues in line with the new Act, ensure communities are supported, and help create a sustainable national framework to strengthen mental health across the country.

Sustainability is so important, when you think about the future of mental health in Malawi, what gives you hope?

I am hopeful because this is a transformative moment for mental health in Malawi. We are seeing more youth-led organisations across districts. Youth are speaking openly and confidently. Communities are embracing mental health knowledge. Faith leaders are open to partnership. Schools and universities are creating mental health clubs. Government is opening space for policy influence. I am hopeful because Malawi is moving towards recognising mental health as a human right, and organisations like ours are building systems to bring care closer to communities. We are stepping into a future where no one struggles alone.

Thank you for taking the time to speak with us, any last thoughts you would like to share

Yes I would just like to emphasise the importance of elevating people with lived experience to help guide programme design and national advocacy.

We should train community gatekeepers, chiefs, trusted leaders and community figures, on mental health so they become champions in their communities, members of village and area development committees. Services should be accessible and culturally grounded, using local languages like Chichewa so people can fully understand mental health.

Finally, where can people find you or get in touch?

We provide free psychological first aid through our crisis response “venting room.” If someone needs more support, they are referred to our paid professional counselling or therapy services.

We also run WhatsApp groups providing mental health training and share information on social media platforms including LinkedIn, X, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. All of this information can be found at sorryimnotsorry.org