The Upwell Foundation
The Upwell Foundation was founded by a group of like-minded individuals. Founded at the height of COVID pandemic in 2021, we responded to what we saw in the mental health industry. Located in a third-world setting in South Africa, our ability as psychologists to adequately respond to the needs of those most in need was limited. This was our inspiration to establish the Foundation and its mission. Our aim is to see individuals within communities healing and developing their potential and then helping others.
Servant Leadership
MENTAL HEALTH – COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT – SOCIAL JUSTICE – SUPPORT – DIGNITY – HOPE
We want to create self-sustaining micro-systems of hope with the aim of seeing individuals within communities healing and developing their potential and then going back to their own communities and serving as a resource to support others, thereby uplifting communities of people over time.
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About Us
The Upwell Foundation was founded by a group of like-minded individuals who share a passion for mental-health, community development and social justice. These three areas lie at the very core of our Foundation and our aspirations. Founded at the height of COVID pandemic in 2021, we responded to what we psychologists witnessed within the mental health community. We saw mass grief and fear that went on to impact all areas of human development and functioning.
The long-term impact of people living in extreme uncertainty and fear highlighted a greater (long exiting) problem: stunted psychological growth that eventually leads to a range of difficulties. Across the life-span, human difficulty is observed in the form of learning problems in children, financial difficulty, marital problems, career dissatisfaction and the general inability for individuals to create lives that are fulfilling.
Being located in a third world setting in South Africa, the ability of us psychologists to adequately respond to the psychological needs of those who needed it most was limited. Most people are never even able to access resources for support. This observation applies not only to South Africa but the wider global south and all vulnerable societies globally. These societies are best described as being a high-risk, low-resourced environment for mental health. This landscape is what inspired us to establish the Upwell Foundation and guide its mission.
With the principle of servant leadership and a sense of community at our core, we set out to design and undertake project with the long-term goal to support people to help themselves. Regardless of the root of their challenges, be it from poverty, lack of educational resources, war or political circumstances.
Our greatest wish is to work across different contexts with diverse peoples, beyond the bounds of race, culture, religion and genders. Our purpose is to respond to the support needs of as many vulnerable groups as our own resources allow and allow the extent of human suffering to serve as motivation to fuel our mission. The diversity in our founding team supports our diversity aspirations. We aim to grow our Foundation on the ideal of responding to human beings needs wherever we may be helpful.
We need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in.
Our Vision
social justice for all, bringing hope through restoring human dignity
Our Mission
empowerment of communities to stimulate their sense of agency
Our Values
humanitarianism through mental health support, establishing genuine connections with people across geographies
What We're Doing
During the pandemic, there was a notable decline in mental health globally, particularly amongst vulnerable groups. According to the World Happiness Report of 2021, one of the key supports to overcoming the trauma and consequences of the pandemic is to establish a sense of trust and dependence on (reliable) others. This fact has largely influenced our approach to what we’re working for in mental health.
From inception, having access to mental health and other support skills as a resource that can be used to uplift others has been our motivation. These ideals have become the ideals that our Foundations values are built on: establish genuine connections with people across geographies because theory has shown that these connections support psychological healing and growth and then leverage these connections for humanitarianism in our mental health related work.
Our vision is to work towards social justice for all. A deep-rooted value that underpins our work is to restore human dignity to vulnerable communities. In so doing we hope to restore hope to these groups, thus activating internal motivation. By taking a systematic approach towards accomplishing our vision, our Foundations mission is more easily accomplished: stimulating a sense of agency in the most vulnerable as a means to empowering them.
Our Focuses
As a very young organization, The Upwell Foundation is currently doing groundwork to roll out projects in rural South African spaces, in Afghanistan and with the Syrian refugee populations residing in Turkey. These are populations who are well-known for being high-risk and low-resourced.
Rural South African spaces
Afghanistan
Syrian Refugees in Turkey
Our Next Focus
We welcome suggestions for causes, communities or contexts.
Our Team
Dr Safia Mohamed
Founder & Chairman
Eiraj Shakib
Vice-Chairman
Dr Wendy Carvalho-Malekane
Secretary
Francois de Bruyn
Content Developer
Team Upwell
