Why I Went to Rwanda: Learning from Those Who Are Reimagining Mental Health

When people hear that I traveled to Rwanda to share the Human Experience Labyrinth framework with mHub and their team of mental health practitioners, they often assume I went there to teach.

The truth is, I went there to learn just as much as I went to share.

There are few places in the world that have been asked to grapple with human suffering as profoundly as Rwanda. The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi left unimaginable loss, grief, and trauma that continues to shape generations. Yet rather than becoming defined by tragedy, Rwanda has become a global example of resilience, restoration, and possibility. That is precisely why I believe Rwanda is one of the most important places in the world to explore the future of mental health.

Ground Zero for Reimagining Care

Mental health care around the world is at an interesting crossroads.

Rates of anxiety, depression, suicide, loneliness, burnout, and disconnection continue to rise despite increasing access to diagnoses, medications, and evidence-based treatments. These interventions are often valuable and lifesaving, yet many practitioners and clients alike are asking an important question:

What if there is more? What if traditional therapy and medication aren't the only answers?

What if healing isn't only about reducing symptoms?

What if suffering itself contains information?

What if our role is not always to eliminate discomfort, but to help people understand it, relate to it differently, and discover the wisdom it may hold?

These are not easy questions.

They require curiosity, humility, and the willingness to question long-held assumptions.

That is why Rwanda stands out.

Rather than committing to a single model of care simply because it has been widely adopted elsewhere, many Rwandan leaders are asking a different question:

"What actually works for our people?"

There is a remarkable openness to integrating approaches that honor both scientific knowledge and human wisdom. There is a recognition that no single framework holds all the answers. That openness creates fertile ground for innovation.

Why the Human Experience Labyrinth

The Human Experience Labyrinth is not another treatment protocol.

It is an orientation.

It invites us to move beyond seeing human experiences solely through the lens of pathology and instead recognize suffering as an inherent part of being human, one that can become a doorway to greater awareness, meaning, resilience, and connection.

This perspective does not reject psychology, psychiatry, or evidence-based interventions.

It expands them.

There are times when reducing suffering is essential. Crisis care matters. Medication can save lives. Therapy can provide invaluable support.

But if our work ends there, we may miss the deeper invitation that suffering often offers.

The Human Experience Labyrinth helps practitioners hold both realities simultaneously:

• Reducing unnecessary suffering.

• Helping people discover meaning within the suffering that cannot simply be removed.

This both-and orientation deeply resonated with many of the practitioners who attended the training at mHub.

Why mHub-Rwanda?

mHub-Rwanda is doing extraordinary work to expand access to mental health services in Rwanda.

What impressed me most was not simply the quality of care and training they provide, it was the mindset of their team.

They are deeply committed to serving their communities while remaining curious enough to ask difficult questions.

How can we better support people?

How can we move beyond simply managing symptoms?

How do we build resilience that lasts?

How do we help people reconnect not only with mental health, but with themselves, one another, and their communities?

These are courageous questions.

And courageous questions are what move fields forward.

The Future of Mental Health Will Be Co-Created

One of the greatest misconceptions in global health is that innovation flows in only one direction—from wealthy countries to everyone else.

My experience in Rwanda reminded me of the opposite.

Some of the most important innovations emerge from communities that have had to wrestle directly with humanity's deepest challenges.

People who have lived through profound suffering often possess extraordinary wisdom about healing.

Rwanda has become a place where resilience is not merely a concept but a lived reality.

As mental health practitioners across the globe search for new ways of supporting rising rates of distress, there is much we can learn from countries willing to remain open, collaborative, and deeply human in their approach.

A Shared Journey

I did not go to Rwanda because I believed I had the answers.

I went because I believe the future of mental health will not be built by one person, one profession, or one country.

It will emerge through collaboration.

Through humility.

Through the willingness to question assumptions while honoring what has come before.

The Human Experience Labyrinth is one contribution to that conversation.

I hope that together, with practitioners like those at mHub and leaders across Rwanda, we continue to explore what becomes possible when we see suffering not only as something to fix, but also as something capable of revealing resilience, connection, wisdom, and ultimately, our shared humanity.

Because perhaps the future of mental health isn't about finding one better model.

Perhaps it's about remembering what it means to be fully human.