The Character and Benefits of Youth-Guided Wellness Cafés in Promoting Mental Health

This paper addresses the character and benefits of a youth-guided, social wellbeing experience, called a wellness café, that seeks to promote relational wellness as an alternative and compliment to many “fix-and-mend” approaches to mental (ill-)health issues. It explores the notion of wellness deprivation in Tanzania and rising concerns about youth mental illness. The cafés are based on the twin wellness principles of kindness and mattering. Emerging café data suggests that a focus on wellness from engaged youth is giving rise to positive feelings of security, inclusivity, attunement, connection, appreciation and significance, helping shift the discourse from mental illness to wellness.