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Kindology is a project that promotes access to mental health care by offering psychology appointments to those who can’t afford them.
Each Portuguese is absent from work for an average of eight days a year due to mental health issues. What’s more, each person spends an average of 15.8 days a year in the workplace unable to be productive because of mental health problems.
It was based on these figures that Joana Namorado and João Costa realized they had to do more for those who need to take care of themselves and don’t do it because of stigma or financial reasons. “We want to make this topic as normal and accessible as possible,” CEO João tells Peggada.
That’s how Kindology was bornThis is a community of psychologists that only works online (for the time being), with prices that are more affordable than those usually charged, and in which the chosen model allows the money raised on one side to be used to pay for consultations for those who are unable to do so.
This desire to do more is not new. At the end of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, Joana and João created an Instagram page called “Dear Santa Claus”, through which they answered letters sent by people to a supposed Santa Claus. “We realized that people opened up more easily in this model than they would in front of a psychologist,” says João. At the same time, it allowed us to become aware of the need for a response that is still not enough. “We received 900 letters in three weeks. At the time, we put our daughter to bed at 9pm and stayed up until 3am answering the letters,” she recalls.
It was then that they created a first sketch of what Kindology is today, initially with psychology appointments ranging from €0 to €50, so that everyone could pay what they could. However, they quickly realized that this model would not be sustainable for the company and reformulated the structure, so Kindology is now a brand.
“We created Kindology with the idea of being a brand dedicated to mental health,” he explains. That’s why on the website you’ll find information on mental health, the possibility of making appointments, and also a store with merchandising to take Kindology and mental health to the streets. They come in various designs with messages such as “Be kind to all kinds” or “You matter no matter what”, so that everyone can take mental health to heart. And for every sale, 20% of the turnover helps to finance appointments for those who can’t pay.
Currently, Kindology also has Susana Coerver in marketing and already hosts 29 psychologists in its network of professionals.
There are individual and group sessions and you can choose the psychologist according to their area of expertise.
The project’s funding comes from these individual appointments and from the sale of merchandising, but mainly from the work they do with large companies, which are increasingly aware of the importance of mental health care for their workers.
“We know that the SNS (Serviço Nacional de Saúde, Portugal’s publicly funded healthcare system) can’t cope with all the demands and we want these companies to be allies of this public service,” adds João.
With this system of circularity, which has always been at the heart of Kindology, for every five consultations, one is offered to those who can’t pay. “We don’t want the financial issue to be an obstacle to those who need something so essential and with such an impact.”
The appointments are, for the moment, exclusively online, but João plans to set up offices for appointments all over the country – and, who knows, abroad too. “We want to take Kindology everywhere,” he concludes.
Marta Cerqueira is from Minho and vegetarian. Luckily, she lives in Lisbon, where there is more tofu than sarrabulho. She has been a journalist for over 15 years, the last of which writing about food and sustainability. Now, out of the newsroom, she continues to write whenever she can, be it in magazines, journals, post its, or on her Instagram page, which she uses to share a life divided between being a mom-person-foodie-traveler. Still, she created Peggada so she could write about what doesn't fit in a magazine, journal, post it or Instagram: a better world.
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