Partnership with “Friendship Bench”

With the signing of a partnership level agreement between the “Friendship Bench” Zimbabwe and Friedensau Adventist University, we have taken a step towards our shared vision of making “a Friendship Bench available everywhere, within walking distance and free of charge for all”. Our common goal is to offer an easily accessible prevention service run by trained lay people in the struggle against loneliness and depression. This aims to bring a preventative and care component back into the everyday environment, neighborhoods and communities.

Since signing our first service level agreement with FB in spring 2024, we have been able to train a very committed English-speaking and German-speaking group of students and university staff using Friendship Bench's client-centered counseling approach. Based on an open, non-judgmental, empathic mindset and trained in active listening as well as adaptable elements of cognitive behavioral therapy, students and university staff are already active on campus as FB supporters.

With the partnership level agreement, we are now able to establish Friendship Bench also beyond Friedensau. Prof. Dr. Dr. Silvia Hedenigg and Prof. Andreas Bochmann conduct the three-stage training and the subsequent supervision groups and provide support during implementation. Existing contacts with local authorities and organizations have indicated a strong interest in the potential of the approach, which can now be actively implemented. We are convinced that the approach – the effectiveness of which has been confirmed in over 100 scientific studies – can also make an important contribution to preventing loneliness and depression in Germany.