HeartWork

HeartWork is a structured 30-day recovery programme that runs on WhatsApp. It uses a moment of acute distress, the period right after a breakup, as a window to deliver mental health skills the user would not normally seek out. Daily check-ins, evidence-based coping exercises, and somewhere to put the feelings that would otherwise go to a 2am text message.

Young adults aged 18 to 35 who are in the middle of a breakup. The audience finds us, not the other way round. People in this state describe their situation in a search bar at 2am. HeartWork shows up there.

South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho and eSwatini. English-language content travels well across the region.

For most young people, a breakup is the most acute mental distress they will go through in any given year. Most of them get through it without any structured support, and a lot of them do real damage to themselves while they do.

The "no contact" approach is the single most evidence-backed thing a person can do for their own recovery. It is also, in practice, very hard to follow without somebody in your corner. HeartWork is built to be that someone, on a channel the user is already on at the moment they need it.

This is the SameSame approach in action. We deliver mental health support through a lens that overcomes the stigma still attached to it. People who would never sign up for "therapy" or "anxiety support" will sign up for help getting over a breakup. We meet them there.

A user describes their situation on WhatsApp. HeartWork builds a 30-day programme around what they have told us, with daily check-ins and short evidence-based exercises. The clinical foundation is Project Care and Project Personality, two single-session interventions developed by Jessica Schleider's Lab for Scalable Mental Health, adapted by SameSame to run on WhatsApp.

When the user wants to break no contact and message their ex, they message HeartWork first. We hold the space, work the feelings through with them, and let them decide what to do next with a clearer head.

The pieces were already in place. Our WhatsApp infrastructure was operating at scale across the region. The clinical methodologies HeartWork runs on had already been adapted by SameSame for digital delivery. Organic interest on social was strong before the bot was even live.

And the audience HeartWork reaches opens up a wider body of work for SameSame, including sexual and reproductive health, HIV disclosure, and relationship coaching, all of which sit in funding streams that are larger and more stable than general mental-health philanthropy.