Episode 8 · Rwanda

Co-designing mental health solutions with young people in Rwanda

Dr Jana Alagarajah · Technical Lead, YLabs; Digital Mental Health Specialist

Dec 2024

Listen on your preferred channel

Co-designing mental health solutions with young people in Rwanda

Listen

About this episode

What does real, meaningful co-design look like? Dr Jana Alagarajah shares what he learned implementing a digital mental health tool with young people in Rwanda - how to listen before building, how to engage communities and carers, and how to get procurement and policy to genuinely value equitable solutions.

Mental Health Co-design Implementation Africa Community Health

“Build with people, not for people.”
Dr Jana Alagarajah

What we cover

01What real, meaningful co-design looks like in practice
02Engaging communities, young people, and carers to build solutions they actually use
03The mindset shift: going in with no pre-conceived notion of what will be built
04Getting procurement and policy to value and elevate equitable solutions
05Lessons from partnering with UNICEF, USAID, the King's Fund, and Health Foundation
06Co-developing Africa's first evidence-based digital mental health regulation with the Rwandan Ministry of Health
07Innovative evaluation approaches: from cluster RCTs to cyclical evaluation for digital health

About the guest

Dr Jana Alagarajah

Technical Lead, YLabs; Digital Mental Health Specialist

Dr Jana Alagarajah (MD MPH) is a digital mental health specialist, UK-trained public health doctor, and psychiatrist co-designing equitable and impactful digital health innovation in Africa with young people as Technical Lead at YLabs. Partnering with UNICEF, USAID, and the Gates Foundation, he leverages digital tools to strengthen health systems.

Transcript

Working in digital health?

Heard something relevant to your work?

Shubs consults on clinical leadership, evidence strategy, and digital health market access. If this conversation sparked something, it is worth a conversation.

Shubs takes on consulting work with startups, investors, and global organisations across digital health.

Working on something in digital health?

→ Get in touch

Send to a friend

From crisis to revolution: why Africa's moment is now, a healthtech VC's case

Rowena Luk · Managing Partner, Africa Health Ventures

A healthtech investor's view on healthcare in Africa over the next 10 years. Rowena Luk has built and scaled digital health in over 40 African countries. Now she's backing founders through her VC firm - and makes a measured, compelling case for why this moment of crisis is also the biggest opportunity Africa has seen.

→ Listen

#15·

May 2025

Implementation 101 and how to fail well

Caroline Perrin · Executive Director, Geneva Digital Health Hub

The Geneva Digital Health Hub's Caroline Perrin on what it takes to implement digital health well in LMICs - why most failures are predictable, the role of community health workers, and how the Implementome community is building a global learning culture around implementation.