How Hakini Improves Access to Therapy in Palestine and Beyond

As a Palestinian living in the West Bank, Sondos Mleitat says she realized the difficulty in finding reliable and affordable mental health services after a long search for appropriate and consistent support.

Once she experienced the life-changing benefits of counseling, she began to see a crying void in the market for easy-to-access, culturally appropriate and cost-effective services. The architectural engineer therefore quit his job in a company and, with Majd Manadre and Mohannad Amarneh, co-founded the telehealth start-up Hakini.

Ramallah start-up seeks to provide online mental health services in Arabic to users in Palestine and the wider Middle East as people grapple with the devastating impact of Covid-19, the realities of life under occupation and the social stigmatization of access to counseling. -especially for women.

Hakini, which means “tell me” or “talk to me” in Arabic, remotely connects users to therapists based on their needs and offers guidance for a self-help intervention.

“We began to realize the pain of finding mental health services in Palestine and the Mena region, the [current] the solutions are ineffective in the short term and costly in the long term, ”says Mleitat. “A lot of people are not getting the mental health support they need, so we see a huge opportunity for Hakini to provide a solution. “

The Covid-19 pandemic has put mental health tech start-ups in the spotlight around the world, with 2020 marking a record year for venture capital investments in the sector, according to data firm PitchBook. Its data showed that 146 deals brought in nearly $ 1.6 billion in venture capital investments as of December 2020. In 2019, the total was $ 893 million for 111 deals. Ten years ago there were only three deals, worth $ 6.6 million.

Investments are pouring in as demand for mental health services increased during the pandemic when disruptions to daily life and work, coupled with lockdown measures, triggered and exacerbated mental health problems. Social distancing rules and health concerns have pushed this demand online, making telehealth essential for healthcare providers.

Hakini, which started operations in March 2020, has seen a growing demand for online therapy services during the global health crisis.

“It was our time during Covid-19. The number of people with anxiety and depression increased and they started looking for solutions online due to blockages,” Ms. Mleitat said. “We are seeing increased interest from governments and the private sector in mental health. “

The pandemic has exposed weaknesses in healthcare systems around the world that have prompted governments to increase investment in mental health services, a generally underfunded segment, and companies to invest more in employee well-being. .

“After Covid-19, our business has been positively impacted: the stigma around mental health has decreased and people are more comfortable with technology,” she says.

The difficulty in finding mental health services is further magnified in parts of Palestine, where many people live in deteriorating economic conditions and ongoing political crises, according to Hakini.

“In the West Bank, where we started, less than 10% of people seeking mental health services were able to find them,” Ms. Mleitat said, citing data from the Palestinian health ministry and Hakini’s own calculations. “There is a huge need and people are not happy with the current solution.”

Following the recent airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in May, Hakini received an influx of inquiries from people seeking advice. The platform provided 6,000 minutes of therapy to people in the stranded band based on a sponsorship model, where people can pay on behalf of those who cannot afford sessions. For Gaza, which has been under Israeli blockade since 2007, the pandemic has made life worse for people whose mobility was already restricted, according to a UN report.

“We need mental health solutions adapted to the Arab culture and experience, because not just any Western concept is immediately applicable to the Arab region,” Ms. Mleitat said.

Social stigma surrounding seeking mental health support and attitudes toward mental illness mean that women in particular do not have access to the help they need.

Hakini says about 75 percent of her clients are women seeking therapy online because they face a more acute stigma than men for in-person counseling.

“Some are not authorized by their brother, husband or family,” Ms. Mleitat said.

Hakini serves clients primarily in Palestine, but also has Arabic speaking users from the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. Aged 18 to 45 and predominantly female, users can opt for individual therapy sessions online or packages with an average price of $ 60 per session. Another option is to pay $ 15 for a monthly subscription to self-help tools guided on a range of topics “to help them be their own therapist.”

The content and online sessions are in Arabic, to fill gaps in mental health support in the language and to offer culturally nuanced information, Ms. Mleitat said.

So far, Hakini has provided a total of 40,000 minutes of online therapy over the 12 months from November 1, 2020 to October 30, 2021. He has also served 1,000 people with self-help tools and released 300 articles in Arabic on his platform which has reached one million readers, he said.

The start-up plans to expand into the Middle East and North Africa region, starting with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, said the co-founder.

Hakini, who previously raised $ 35,000 in pre-seed funding from investors in Dubai and Paris, is now seeking an additional $ 750,000 in seed investment, Ms. Mleitat said.

The start-up will use the funds to invest in technology, build a mobile app, hire more talent and launch marketing.

Leading a start-up in Palestine is not without its challenges, says the co-founder.

“In my experience as a Palestinian entrepreneur, we don’t have a solid infrastructure for entrepreneurship, there is no independent ecosystem,” she said. “I see change coming from entrepreneurs because they can transform the economy.”

More investment is also needed in start-ups in Palestine, apart from donations for international aid, to help entrepreneurs solve local problems, she said.

“A lot of funding is coming to conflict zones, but we need to improve the mindset of investing in start-ups,” she says. “We are not looking for a donation, we are looking for an investment in a business that will grow and grow and create lasting solutions.”

Clubhouse is one of the startups that inspires me and has influenced the way I think about how we can convert our startup from an idea into a true exponentially growing business. Specifically, I liked their model focused on growing the platform in terms of increasing their user base, providing a user-friendly platform with a freemium model and an innovative approach to communication between people around the world.

The way the Clubhouse founders have thought about their business is impressive, where they focused on building trust with their target customers and later on potentially being able to monetize their services and generate income. in the future. I think this approach is important for the founders of startups who work in particular in the B2C model.

My dream is to make therapy and mental health services accessible and affordable for everyone in the Mena region. I hope therapy becomes a way of life and is not affected by social stigma. There are positive indicators that the region is on the right track to achieve this.

Leading a start-up is not an easy process and you need to really invest in yourself in a way that contributes to your management, communication and leadership skills and understand how to collaborate with potential partners who could be an important part of the business. success of your business. I have learned that building trust is the key to success. As a first step, this trust must be created with your team, your mentors, advisers, clients and possibly with potential investors.

I also learned business modeling, storytelling, pitching, how to apply design thinking processes and use the lean start-up method to understand the needs of our clients.

It was time to launch Hakini and start providing support to help people in Palestine and other countries around the world, as the need for mental health services increased around the world. Many people were looking for help to overcome the depressive and stressful situation. During Covid19, we started to see great interest from individuals, businesses and government institutions in mental health and wellness services. These institutions began to understand the importance of investing in this sector and how it can positively contribute to the education system, economy and society.

The Covid-19 pandemic has negatively impacted the mental health of many people and created new barriers for people already facing mental health and substance use issues. There has been a huge increase in symptoms of anxiety and depression as a result of the pandemic. For example, in the United States, about four in ten adults reported these symptoms, up about 400% from 2019. This indicates the importance of taking mental health more seriously by governments, schools, universities, businesses and other stakeholders.

I see Hakini as the main therapy platform in the Mena region. Today, we provide our services to people in Palestine, Jordan, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Arab Emirates and the United States. In five years, we want to see Hakini operate in other MENA countries, starting with Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Society: Hakini, Inc

Founders: Sondos Mleitat, Majd Manadre, Mohannad Amarneh

Creation date : October 2019 and started operations in March 2020

Based: Delaware, United States and Ramallah, Palestine

Sector: mental health, wellness and telehealth

Size (employees and turnover): 11 employees

Investment stage: Start-up funding required

Investors: angel investors, accelerators, grants

Update: November 25, 2021, 3:52 p.m.