Mental health matters in children too.

Stijn de Leeuw, a child psychologist from the Netherlands, founded Little Lions Child Coaching. He is currently working on his PhD in child psychology, at the University of Cape Town.

Little Lions aims to create awareness around mental health in children, by helping children and their parents by offering free mental health workshops focusing on positive emotions, resilience and building confidence. 

Too often children are expected to not have any problems or be affected by anything because they are young but the reality is that depression does exist in children too. They often don't know how express how they feel, especially about the really deep things bothering them, which is why Stijn saw the need for this awareness.

Stijn de Leeuw
They are currently running crowdfunding to be able to buy a mini van so that they can go around and offer these workshops in the township areas, such as Langa, Khayelitsha, etc. These are the most needing areas because in your more privileges areas their schools offer therapy services but not in the townships.

With therapy also there is also the stigma that comes with it; Stijn suggests that the more we speak about mental health and normalize getting the right help, therapy, then slowly but surely the stigma shall go away. With the mini van, it will be visible and the children will get to go in and see that it is a fun area.

For now Little Lions will be working with children between the ages 8 to 15 years old. The aim is to attack the problem while the child is still young instead of waiting till the child is an adult and not reaching their full potential to then try solving the issue.
Stijn passionately explaining his vision for Little Lions.

To get involved and donate go to the below:
Crowdfunding: https://www.thundafund.com/project/littlelionschildcoaching
Website: https://www.littlelionschildcoaching.com/
Instagram: @littlelionscoaching



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