“I hope people can understand that mental health is as essential, crucial, and shame-free as physical health,” says Farida Ismail, founder of the Safe Space mobile application. Born out of the need of talking to someone, ‘Safe Space’ is an Egyptian app that attempts to change the face of therapy in Egypt by offering affordable, accessible, and anonymous online professional therapy. View this post on Instagram A post shared by A Safe Space ✨ (@safespaceappp) The stigma surrounding therapy in Egypt has been slowly changing over the past years. According to a nationwide survey conducted in 2018 by the Ministry of Health, 25 percent of Egyptians suffer from mental health problems. The desire of the 22-year-old founder and creator, Farida Ismail, to serve and help, led her to come up with the idea of the app. Ismail recounts that the idea came to her when she was scrolling through social media and began realizing that there is an app created for everything nowadays. “I wondered why there wasn’t an application where I can talk to someone who doesn’t know me, won’t judge me, and who I can…
