Group and Individual Counseling

Group Counseling

Counseling is a core part of Nyanam’s work. We provide monthly group counseling sessions to each leadership circle, building on the peer-to-peer support that the widows received in their weekly to biweekly meetings at the leadership circles. Nyanam’s 2 professional counselors, Pastor Nicodemus Agumba and Pastor Eunice Otieno, coordinate Nyanam’s group counseling sessions and have worked with the widows for a number of years. Counseling in a group setting is essential for fostering community, understanding, and support on the commonalities of struggle that widows face.

In addition to the group counseling available through the two professional counselors, the creation of additional peer counselor roles for widow leaders within each leadership circle provides empowering leadership opportunities for widows. The peer counseling initiative is important in cultivating sustainable relationships and group support systems for widows that are directly based on widows’ ideas and needs. 

When the pandemic halted the regular meetings as well as the group counseling sessions, we provided widows with a Hope Devotional, that we encouraged them to read with their children to facilitate family bonding and share uplifting stories in the crisis. Our counsellors also provided individualized support to emerging conflicts involving widows during the pandemic, including a dispute about widow inheritance. Towards the end of 2020, the widows and their children shared with us the need for mental health support which we aim to prioritize in 2021.

Individual Counseling

The widows have expressed a need for more access to individual counseling with Nyanam’s counselors. Individualized mental health support is essential in supporting and addressing the nuanced situations and unique set of issues that each widow faces. Although group support is effective at creating community around shared experiences, individual counseling is an important further step in improving the mental and spiritual well-being of widows. In individual sessions, widows can have access to specified mental health support and direction, and can be provided with individualized tools to manage difficult situations or personal mental health concerns.