0:15

Pushkin. I'm

0:18

a Higgins and this is Solvable Interviews

0:21

with the world's most innovative thinkers working

0:23

to solve the world's biggest problems.

0:27

My name is Dixon Shibanda and my solvable

0:30

is breaking the wall of depression by

0:32

training grandmothers all over

0:34

the world in basic cognitive

0:37

behavioral therapy so they

0:39

can provide care in their

0:41

communities. Dixon

0:44

Shabanda is an associate professor

0:46

at the University of Zimbabwe and

0:49

he's the director of the African Mental

0:51

Health Research Initiative. He's

0:53

also one of only sixteen psychiatrists

0:56

in the whole of Zimbabwe. Now that

0:58

country has a population of thirteen million

1:00

people. So Dixon Shabandah

1:03

created the Friendship Bench that's

1:05

a place for people to seek and access

1:07

therapy for mental healths. These

1:10

friendship benches are run by women

1:12

in the community. They're fondly referred

1:15

to as grandmothers, and their work

1:17

is proving hugely successful. It's

1:19

even beginning to catch on around the world

1:22

with a bench popping up here in New York

1:24

and also throughout Kenya. We

1:26

certainly need solvables like this

1:29

because mental health is a global

1:31

issue today and estimated

1:33

three hundred and twenty two million people

1:35

around the world live with depression,

1:38

and the majority of those people are in

1:41

non Western nations. Now,

1:43

mental health is fundamental to

1:45

our collective and our individual

1:48

ability as humans to

1:50

think, to experience emotions,

1:53

to interact with each other, to earn

1:55

a living, and really just to enjoy

1:57

life. In low income countries

2:00

likes and bad Way, where seventy two percent

2:02

of the population live below the

2:04

poverty line, you can imagine

2:06

that getting access to really any

2:08

form of mental health therapy, it's

2:10

not only difficult, it's nearly impossible.

2:13

But that's changing thanks to

2:16

today's guest Dicks in Shabandah. You'll

2:18

hear how in this conversation with

2:20

Jacob Weisberg, I wanted to

2:22

ask you what brought you to

2:24

this problem? Well, the

2:26

problem that I experienced,

2:29

you know, as a junior psychiatrist in

2:31

Zimbabwe, where I first started

2:34

my work was just you

2:36

know, quite huge, you know, just the sheer

2:39

amount of work and the need

2:41

for professionals. And I realized

2:44

from a very early stage that

2:46

working from a hospital which

2:49

just wasn't going to enable

2:51

me to reach out to the thousands

2:53

of people that needed care, particularly for

2:55

depression. And when I lost

2:57

a client of mine Erica

3:00

through suicide, I realized

3:03

the need to actually take

3:06

mental health to the community, and

3:08

this is how this whole concept of

3:10

working with grandmothers started.

3:13

You know, a need to take evidence based

3:15

mental health to the community and

3:17

not just provided within health

3:20

facilities or clinics. It's been a

3:22

real struggle in this country, and I'm sure

3:24

there's a different version of it Zimbabwe

3:27

that you live through. But to put mental

3:29

health on a par with physical

3:31

health, people who will readily concede

3:34

that everyone should have access to healthcare

3:37

sometimes think that mental healthcare

3:39

is secondary or a luxury of some kind.

3:42

Yeah, that is unfortunately a problem

3:45

which is a global problem.

3:48

A lot of people do not realize that

3:50

by sidelining mental health you

3:53

inevitably have challenges in

3:56

addressing the physical health

3:58

issues because coal morbidity

4:01

is kind of the norm in a lot of chronic diseases.

4:04

If you think of things like hypotension or

4:06

diabetes, you know a lot of people

4:08

who from these chronic diseases

4:11

do have core morbid mental health

4:13

issues. And when you tackle just

4:15

the physical and not tackle the

4:17

mental health or the emotional well being

4:19

or a person, you actually

4:22

do not improve the outcomes or the physical

4:24

aspect as well. So it's very important

4:26

to have a very holistic approach. This is

4:28

what the work that I do is all about. You know,

4:30

it's not really just about mental health,

4:33

but it's ensuring that mental health

4:35

results in improved outcomes

4:38

of other conditions that people may have

4:40

and functionality, for instance,

4:43

the number of people who struggle in the

4:45

workplace as a result of mental health issues.

4:47

You know. Again, if you address the mental health

4:49

issues, you improve people's functionality.

4:52

Organizations function better, companies

4:54

produce better results, you know. So it's

4:57

kind of endless if you think of the

4:59

link of mental health with the challenges

5:01

that are out there that the world is trying to address.

5:04

What type of mental and emotional issues

5:07

are you dealing with? How serious? So

5:09

when we first started, our focus was on

5:12

what we call common mental disorders, which

5:14

in essence include things like

5:16

depression anxiety disorders PDSD.

5:20

And we use an algorithm to

5:23

enable us to determine the

5:25

severity of the symptoms that a person

5:27

presents with. And so if

5:29

someone is, for instance, a red flag,

5:32

someone is for instance, suicidal,

5:35

the grandmothers on the bench will refer that

5:37

person to the next level. So

5:39

we have these algorithms that enable

5:42

us to address the needs of pretty

5:44

much everyone who comes to the bench, either

5:46

directly on the bench or by referring

5:48

them to the next level, depending on what

5:51

it is they present with, Jackson,

5:53

How did you come up with this idea of the

5:55

bench? So when I

5:57

first made the decision to introduce

6:00

something at community level, a lot

6:02

had been happening in my country. In

6:04

two thousand and five, the

6:06

country went through a lot of

6:08

social or economic upheavals, and

6:11

it was against the background of these

6:14

upheavals that a need

6:16

to introduce something at community level

6:19

came. And unfortunately, because

6:22

there were no psychiatrists

6:25

or doctors available, I

6:28

was instructed to try and come up with a

6:30

solution using community

6:33

grandmothers. And because

6:35

we couldn't use any of the buildings, we

6:37

were also told, well, try and come up with

6:39

something outside of the building. So it

6:42

was really more of necessity, you know, and

6:44

through an iterative process with

6:46

the grandmothers, we eventually

6:49

came up with the idea of actually delivering

6:51

therapy on a bench. It was really

6:54

necessitated by the fact that there was nothing,

6:56

absolutely nothing, and so all

6:58

I had with these grandmothers and

7:01

the idea of doing something on a bench. So,

7:03

Dickson, you've seen the effectiveness of the

7:06

friendship bench. Can you give us an example.

7:08

Sure, let me give you an example of Derek.

7:11

Derek was a young man who

7:14

was employed in the tea

7:16

industry in Zimbabwe and

7:19

he was referred to the friendship

7:21

bench after a third

7:24

unsuccessful attempt to

7:26

kill himself. And this

7:28

was the first time really he had

7:30

the opportunity to tell his

7:32

story. And when

7:35

the grandmother invited him

7:37

to share his story, he

7:40

suddenly had this overwhelming

7:42

sense of relief

7:45

because he could really then share

7:47

his story with the grandmother and that was,

7:49

in essence, the beginning of

7:51

his healing. Often it's

7:53

simply about letting people share

7:56

their stories. And after

7:58

he shared his story, the grandmother

8:01

worked through and enabled

8:03

him to prioritize the things

8:05

that needed to be done in order to

8:08

help him through the challenges

8:10

that he was facing. See,

8:12

Derek was living with HIV and

8:15

he was struggling to get his medication.

8:17

He was struggling to come to terms with

8:19

being HIV positive. And

8:21

that was his story. And today Derek

8:24

is still functional and he's

8:27

kept his job. Yeah,

8:30

that is a great story. The grandmothers

8:32

can't prescribe drugs. I'm assuming

8:34

what do they do with patients

8:37

who are in need of some medical

8:39

and intervention. Well, they refer

8:42

so as I said earlier on, we have this

8:44

algorithm and based on the

8:46

severity of symptoms that a client

8:49

presents with, they will

8:52

then refer to the next level,

8:54

and the next level will establish

8:56

whether there's need for medication. If there's

8:58

need for medication, the clinic

9:01

nurse will prescribe the medication,

9:03

not the grandmother or the psychiatrist

9:06

will prescribe the medication. So

9:08

the entry point into Friendship

9:10

Bench is a screening of

9:13

basic symptoms for common

9:16

mental disorders. For instance, the questionnaire

9:18

will include questions related to

9:20

sleep. You know, how have you been sleeping in the

9:22

last week, and have you found it

9:24

difficult to cope in the last week?

9:26

Have you found yourself feeling tearful

9:29

in the last week? Have you had thoughts

9:32

of ending your life? Those

9:34

kind of questions, And depending on the number

9:36

of yes responses that the grandmother

9:39

gets, she will then know

9:41

where to place a client.

9:44

You know, whether this is a client that

9:46

should receive the full Friendship Bench

9:49

or they should immediately be referred because

9:51

it's a red flag, So we

9:53

try to use those categories to ensure

9:56

that we really don't cause

9:58

any harm to anyone through this intervention.

10:01

So it's really an essence as stepped care kind

10:03

of approach to addressing

10:06

the treatment gap with a bulk of

10:08

the client and so are taken care of by

10:10

grandmothers and those that they

10:12

can't help go to the

10:14

next level. Dickson, you said it's evidence

10:16

based. What is the evidence that you have

10:18

about how the effectiveness

10:21

of this compares to other

10:23

more conventional forms of initial

10:25

treatment. Yeah, that's a great question,

10:27

you know. So in the world of research,

10:30

the gold standard for

10:33

effectiveness is what we call

10:35

the the randomized trial,

10:38

and so we carried out a cluster

10:40

randomized controlled trial of

10:42

the Friendship Bench, which is actually

10:45

published in the Journal of the American Medical

10:47

Association. And in

10:49

this cluster randomized controlled trial,

10:52

we had twenty four clinics

10:54

that we're randomized into intervention

10:57

arm, which was the Friendship bench or

11:00

usual care, which essentially

11:02

is being seen by a clinic nurse

11:05

or a psychiatrist or receiving

11:09

rozac for depression. So that was

11:11

one arm and we compared the

11:13

primary outcome was HQ nine,

11:15

which is a measure for depression

11:18

symptoms, and we followed our clients

11:20

over a six month period and

11:23

after six months, our results

11:25

showed that grandmothers were

11:28

statistically much

11:30

better than usual care,

11:32

which include nurses and psychiatrists

11:35

in alleviating symptoms of depression

11:38

on the bench, you know, and so that

11:41

evidence is published, it's

11:43

out there and people can look at it.

11:45

But not only that, we have well over fifty

11:48

peer reviewed publications about

11:50

the Friendship Bench, how it works and why

11:53

it works, both quantitative publications

11:56

and qualitative publications which

11:58

describe, you know, the process, which

12:00

describe the experience of both the grandmothers

12:03

and the experience of the clients.

12:05

So the evidence is quite rigorous

12:07

that we have managed to together and

12:09

publish over the past couple of years. There's

12:12

often stigma attached to depression,

12:15

and the stigma is different in different

12:17

cultures. What's it like in Zimbabwe

12:20

and how do you deal with that? So

12:23

there's no difference in Zimbabwe

12:25

with regards to stigma attached

12:27

to different forms of mental illness.

12:30

But the way we've dealt with it on

12:32

the Friendship Bench is we have

12:35

avoided the medicalization

12:38

or the use of clinical

12:41

terms to describe

12:43

clients that come to the bench. The

12:46

first thing that we emphasize on the Friendship

12:48

bench, for instance, is the

12:50

desire for our team to

12:52

improve a person's quality of life,

12:55

and we do not refer to clients

12:57

based on their diagnosis. And

13:00

the other thing is we use local

13:03

indigenous terms to describe

13:06

what they're going through, like for instance,

13:08

we would never use the word depression. The

13:11

term that is used on the Friendship

13:13

bench in my language is kufungi

13:15

sisa, which literally means thinking

13:18

too much, and that often

13:20

resonates with people when it comes to depression.

13:23

When you think of the actual intervention

13:25

itself on the bench, the different

13:28

sessions we use language again

13:31

which resonates with the community. We

13:33

talk about kuvurap funga, which

13:35

literally means opening up the mind.

13:38

We talk about kusimud zera,

13:40

which literally means uplifting, and

13:42

then we talk about kusimbisa, which

13:45

is strengthening. You know, none of those

13:47

terms are medical in whatever

13:49

way you look at them, but they

13:51

are very powerful and communities

13:54

resonate with those words. They can identify

13:56

with kuvapunga or

13:58

opening up of the mind, because that's really

14:01

what people want when they present their story.

14:03

They want to open up their minds so they

14:05

can see how through that story they

14:08

can get healing. Through that story,

14:10

they can get a sense of direction in terms

14:12

of what needs to happen in their lives.

14:15

And again, if you look at New York City,

14:17

they are pretty much doing the same thing. They are not

14:20

labeling people, they are creating

14:22

an opportunity for people to tell their

14:24

stories. That's wonderful. And

14:26

do you think that would apply as

14:28

well in the developed world or

14:30

is there something about traditional

14:32

culture of the kind you were operating

14:34

in a Zimbabwe and the role of grandmothers

14:37

there that makes it specially effective.

14:40

I think it would apply in the developed world

14:43

as well. What we've learned from Friendship

14:45

Bench is that grandmothers are the custodians

14:48

of local culture and

14:50

wisdom, and using

14:52

grandmothers in any culture is

14:54

a great way of connecting

14:57

people and really addressing

14:59

some of the issues around,

15:02

for instance, loneliness. You

15:04

know, so, I think, as I said earlier on,

15:06

this model works and it's

15:09

kind of universal. I think from what we're

15:11

seeing in terms of, you know, the different places

15:13

in the world that are using

15:16

Friendship Bench. I also wonder, Dickson,

15:19

is there something about doing

15:21

this therapy out of doors as

15:23

opposed to in a closed room. That

15:25

makes a difference to the patients. See

15:28

from the feedback that we get from patients

15:30

doing this kind of therapy, Outdoors almost

15:33

kind of takes away the stigma

15:35

that is associated with being

15:38

indoors and seeing a therapist

15:40

who is formally dressed or a psychiatrist.

15:43

In fact, the name itself, you know, the

15:45

Friendship Bench, just takes away

15:48

the stigma. When we first started,

15:50

you know, we actually called it the mental health

15:53

bench. And guess what, no one

15:55

wanted to come to the mental health bench and

15:58

the grandmothers, the grandmothers advised

16:01

that I changed the name, change

16:03

the name to Friendship Bench, because that's what really

16:05

was happening. Yet, this was about creating

16:08

friendship through stories. And when we change

16:10

the name, you know, again it's

16:13

it took away that that clinical aspect

16:15

or clinical connotations,

16:18

and it just became a lot more

16:20

acceptable. I think that one of the

16:23

powers of Friendship Bench, whether you look at Friendship

16:25

Bench in New York City, it's it's that it's outdoors,

16:27

which gives people that freedom to express

16:30

themselves. What's it like for the grandmothers?

16:32

First of all, do they get paid and

16:35

second of all, do they all take

16:37

to it in the same way. I mean, I imagine that

16:39

this is the kind of work that is on the

16:41

one hand, very fulfilling, but on the other

16:43

hand, very difficult, including

16:46

emotionally. For that. Yeah, it

16:48

was one of our concerns,

16:50

you know, a few years ago and a colleague

16:52

of mine, Ruth, who is a

16:54

clinical psychologist working on the friendship

16:57

bench, she actually took

16:59

it upon herself to try

17:01

and look into how

17:04

the grandmothers, you know, we're

17:06

coping with doing all these work. So that was

17:08

really her PhD topic

17:10

to really look into how

17:13

the grandmothers were managing to do all

17:15

this. Our hypothesis was, you know,

17:17

we're probably going to see a lot of these

17:19

grandmothers stressed, burned

17:21

out, and they will they will themselves

17:23

have very high rates of common mental

17:26

disorders. But surprisingly,

17:28

out of a random sample of

17:30

hundreds of grandmothers, we found

17:33

that the actual rates

17:35

of common mental disorders amongst

17:37

the grandmothers who were working on the friendship

17:39

bench who was much lower than

17:42

the community of people who were not

17:44

working on the friendship bench. And

17:47

we then went deeper into it to find

17:49

out how this was possible,

17:52

and the themes that kept emerging

17:54

from their grandmothers, you know, had a lot to

17:57

do with altruism. Working

17:59

on the bench for the grandmothers in their

18:01

communities gave them

18:03

a sense of purpose and

18:05

over the years that sense of purpose,

18:08

you know, resulted in mastery

18:11

of a skill to really empower

18:13

others in the community and help others in the

18:15

community. And it also gave the grandmothers

18:18

a sense of autonomy which is very

18:20

empowering. So in essence,

18:22

the grandmothers are benefiting

18:25

from this work while they help

18:27

people. And are

18:29

they paid and does that matter? So

18:32

they do get an allowance from

18:34

the city Health Department. I must say

18:36

recently, the government of

18:39

Zimbabwe this year finally after

18:41

a long time, it decided

18:43

to endorse Friendship Bench

18:46

as a national program which

18:48

is now integrated in the health

18:51

system of the country. So

18:53

they do get an allowance. But we also get a

18:55

lot of people who do Friendship Bench for

18:57

free, who volunteer. For

18:59

instance, we've taken Friendship Bench to schools.

19:02

As you know, mental health issues are

19:04

quite topical with young

19:07

people. In fact, young people at the most affected

19:10

by depression. If you look at some of the statistics

19:12

coming out of the world Health organization,

19:15

and so we've been taking Friendship Bench to universities

19:18

where we're introducing a peer

19:21

driven Friendship bench where

19:23

university students are trained to sit

19:26

on the bench to provide the service to

19:28

other students because Zimbabwe

19:30

has one of the highest suicide

19:32

rates in that part of Africa, and

19:34

so we see this as an effective intervention

19:37

where young people are reaching out to

19:40

provide support to other

19:42

young people. And again it's

19:44

all rooted in storytelling. You

19:47

referred a little obliquely to

19:50

what's happened in Zimbabwe, but obviously

19:52

you have this devastating

19:55

combination of long term

19:57

political repression with

20:00

economic collapse. Has

20:02

that produced special circumstances

20:05

or a larger number of people

20:07

in need of this kind of cognitive

20:10

therapy. So, while Zimbabwe

20:13

is unique in the sense that it has

20:15

a lot of problems, when

20:18

you look at the global

20:20

burden of common

20:23

mental disorders, it's not unique

20:26

to Zimbabwe. The whole world

20:28

is desperately in need of

20:30

evidence based interventions

20:33

such as Friendship Bench that really

20:36

seek to narrow or reduce

20:38

the treatment gap for these conditions

20:40

so that everyone everywhere has access

20:43

to this much needed help. So,

20:45

yes, Zimbabwe has a whole lot of

20:48

challenges. I mean historically, you

20:50

know, if you look at Zimbabwe, it's a country

20:52

that is characterized by several

20:54

generations of trauma. When

20:57

you think of the

21:00

right in the eighteenth century, the Pioneer

21:02

Column, and then you had the Rhodesian Bush

21:04

War, and then you had

21:07

the massacre of more than twenty thousand

21:09

debility speaking people. You know, the farm

21:11

invasions where white folks were kicked

21:14

off their farms and a lot of them killed.

21:16

It's just a history of tragedy and

21:19

with that history comes

21:22

a need for healing. And

21:24

I see the Friendship Bench as

21:27

a platform providing

21:29

an opportunity for healing, not

21:32

only for Zimbabwe, but for the world.

21:34

And as I said earlier on, people

21:37

thrive through storytelling, and we

21:40

all have a story to tell. And

21:42

if we can leverage

21:45

our ability to use

21:47

these stories to facilitate

21:51

healing, I believe that we could

21:53

be moving in a direction where the

21:56

world becomes a better place for all of us.

21:58

And so, in a small way, that's what I believe

22:01

in, you know, and that's why I keep carrying on

22:03

doing this work on Friendship Bench. It's not

22:05

just about mental health, it's about the big picture

22:08

takes a news say in a small way, but not

22:10

that small anymore. What's the scale

22:12

of friendship Bench now

22:15

in Zimbabwe and then everywhere

22:17

else? So in Zimbabwe

22:19

we are seeing thousands of people every

22:22

month. I mean in the last two years we reached

22:24

out to over sixty

22:26

thousand people, and

22:28

we don't have accurate figures for places

22:31

like Malawi, Zanzibar and

22:33

Kenya where we've recently introduced.

22:36

What we do know is friendship Bench New

22:39

York City in the Bronx and Harlem

22:41

is doing extremely well and they managed

22:43

to reach out to over eighty thousand

22:46

people a year ago, and

22:48

so I guess the numbers

22:50

are growing exponentially. But what I

22:53

really would like to see is a situation

22:55

where friendship Bench is reaching

22:57

out to millions of people across

23:00

the world and also

23:03

friendship Bench being recognized as a

23:05

platform that really can

23:07

enable people to open up

23:10

and tell their stories in

23:13

a safe environment, telling

23:15

their stories so that we have healing.

23:18

It's clear the idea of spreading around

23:20

the world, But what's next for the bench

23:23

as a project. So as

23:26

a project, we are now really looking

23:28

at how we can reach

23:30

our first million clients,

23:33

not just you know, in Zimbabwe, but in

23:36

the different parts of the world where we've introduced

23:38

friendship Bench. We are about

23:40

to introduce friendship Bench in Rwanda,

23:44

we are planning to go to Liberia,

23:46

you know, we've just started in Kenya.

23:49

And so what we're really working on

23:51

is how to bring on

23:53

board a digital component

23:56

to enhance the work that the Grandmothers

23:58

are doing because now we're really dealing

24:00

with big data, and with big

24:03

data, we need to really look

24:05

at how best we can learn from the

24:08

data that is being collected. How can we

24:10

improve friendship Bench. How can

24:12

friendship Bench continue to serve communities,

24:15

How can friendship Bench continue to improve

24:17

lives across the world. So that's

24:19

really our next big challenge. And for

24:21

all of that, obviously we need

24:24

support and we are we are

24:26

looking for partners who can help us to

24:29

really reach every corner

24:31

of the world and make mental

24:33

health, you know, evidence based mental health accessible

24:36

for all. Well, that brings me to the last question

24:38

I always like to ask, which is how can

24:40

listeners advance this?

24:43

How can they get involved? How can they help?

24:46

If you want to help friendship Bench,

24:48

people can do is really

24:50

within themselves in their communities,

24:53

try to create space for healing.

24:56

The world today is

24:58

facing numerous

25:01

challenges, numerous problems. You know, on the

25:03

one hand, we have all these

25:05

technological developments. You know,

25:08

we've done so well technologically

25:10

as a human race, but

25:12

when you look at relationships,

25:14

it's going the other direction. And

25:17

one simple thing that we could all do is

25:20

try to create space for healing

25:22

in our communities. Try

25:25

to create space to listen

25:27

to the stories that our

25:29

neighbors have, the people in our neighborhood

25:32

have, people in our communities.

25:35

You don't have to be a psychiatrist or a

25:37

clinical psychologist to make a difference

25:39

in your community. You simply have

25:41

to be able to give space

25:43

for people to share their stories and you

25:45

have to listen, and that in

25:48

itself is very very powerful.

25:50

And of course, as Friendship Bench,

25:53

we want to take Friendship Bench to every

25:55

corner of the world, and so we're very

25:57

happy to work with people to collaborate

25:59

with people who feel that

26:01

a Friendship Bench in their community or

26:03

in their organization could help

26:06

address mental health challenges

26:08

or just generally improve the quality

26:11

of life and make the world a bit of

26:13

place. Dixon Shabanda, thanks

26:15

for joining us Unsolvable Pleasure.

26:17

Thank you for having me. Wow

26:20

Schka Saszina, he's a director

26:23

of the Department of Mental Health and Substance

26:25

Abuse at the World Health Organization

26:28

said, when it comes to mental health,

26:31

we are all developing countries,

26:33

and that really stayed with me. And

26:35

I think that this episode has

26:38

been such a fitting last episode

26:40

of this season of Solvable because

26:43

communicating, talking, sharing,

26:46

these are all proven to potentially

26:48

keep hopelessness at bay.

26:51

And it's been such a privilege for me

26:53

and I hope for you too to hear from

26:56

all of our guests, each one

26:58

of them a leading thinker, a leading

27:00

doer, each one of them with their own

27:03

Solvable and each one of them taking

27:05

actions every day to solve

27:07

the world's biggest problems. Thank

27:10

you so much to them, and thank you

27:12

too to our brilliant presenters over

27:15

this series, Jacob Weisberg,

27:17

Malcolm Gladwell, Ann Applebaum

27:19

and Ahmed Ali Akbar. And

27:22

remember you can hear all thirty

27:24

episodes wherever you get your podcasts,

27:27

and you can learn more about solving

27:29

today's biggest problems at

27:31

Rockefeller Foundation dot org

27:34

slash Solvable. We

27:36

will be back with more inspiring conversations

27:39

with brilliant problem solvers in

27:41

twenty twenty. I'm May Higgins,

27:44

Now go Solve It. Solvable

27:49

is a collaboration between Pushkin Industries

27:51

and the Rockefeller Foundation. Produced

27:54

by Laura Hyde, Hester Kant, Laura

27:56

Sheeter, and Ruth Barnes of

27:58

Talk and Blade. Pushkin's executive

28:01

producer is Neil la Belle. Engineering

28:04

by Jason Gambrell and the great folks

28:06

at GSI Studios. Research

28:09

by cher Vincent, original music

28:11

composed by Pascal Wise, and

28:13

special thanks to everybody at Pushkin,

28:16

including Maya Kanig, Maggie

28:18

Taylor, Heather Faine, Julia Barton

28:21

and Carlie Migliori, and

28:23

to Christine Heenan, Rachel Roberts,

28:26

Sierra Remersheed, and Rajiv

28:28

Shah at the Rockefeller Foundation for

28:31

making this series possible.