The Buddy Bus – An Innovation for Youth Mental Health

The Buddy Bus – An Innovation for Youth Mental Health

By Ivana Hussu, 12 November 2024

At the beginning of November 2024, the 2nd International SIHI (Social Innovation in Health Initiative) conference took place in Uppsala, Sweden. This year’s theme was “Exploring Entrepreneurship for Social Innovation in Health”. 

To make the session more interactive, a designathon was organised. A designathon is a multistage participatory activity that involves a multidisciplinary team. The activity encourag

es design thinking that incorporates end-users’ perspectives and aims to develop and shape new solutions to existing challenges. 

At the SIHI conference’s designathon the challenge was to improve youth mental health, specifically thinking about the context of Uppsala. Conference participants were divided into groups, assigned a facilitator and joined by youth volunteers to represent the end-user perspective. Participants had a couple hours to come up with an idea, design the main aspects of it and create a poster and short pitch to present it to the judges and other groups. 

Many ideas came up during the process, digital innovations that included the use of an app were very popular, many were focuse

d on prevention and not just improvement, others focused on specific mental health issues. All ideas had a spark of innovation, thought about inclusion and were focused on the end-users.  

However, there was only one winning group that will continue with the second stage of designing the innovative idea. The winner was the “Buddy Bus – We listen, you talk”. The bus was imagined as a safe space f

or young people to gather and vent about anything. The bus would travel according to needs and move in order to keep constant equitable access to all youth in Uppsala. In the bus there would be a trained professional available to listen while youth can express their feelings freely. The bus would also offer other help resources, but most importantly it would offer “fika”. In Swedish culture fika is a concept that involves drinking tea or coffee with colleagues or friends while eating a little something. To make the bus even more welcoming, Benny, the plush lion mascot, would always be there to offer support. 

A great idea that conquered everyone wi

th its simplicity and accessibility. My favorite part was the inclusion of fika in the whole concept and I personally believe it is an innovation that could make a difference in the setting of Uppsala. 

The idea was designed by Gloria Katin Lopez, Sarah Dickins and Emma Oljans.