A group of Gleneagle secondary school students is hoping to bring awareness to the issue of mental health in their community.
As part of Gleneagle’s Leadership 10/11 class in the TALONS program, eight students are organizing an event to provide people with information on taking care of your own mental wellness.
“The main goal of the event is to spread mental health awareness in the community and decrease the stigma around mental health issues,” said Sydney Ko, a Grade 10 student.
Renée Boldut, also in Grade 10 at the Coquitlam school, founded the event in Grade 8 as a school project. She said she perceived stigmas about mental health before she understood what the issue was all about. Now, she wants to provide that information for the rest of the community.
“I want to try and make sure that people in my community would become passionate about breaking down the stigma around mental health,” Boldut told The Tri-City News.
The event is called Youth Mental Wellness Fair, with the slogan “Head to Heart.”
“’Head’ is how we represented the mind and ‘heart’ is how we represented wellness,” Ko said. “We wanted something catchy and easy to say.”
Head to Heart is a non-profit event that will include information booths from FamilySmart and the Burnaby Counselling group, communication-based obstacle courses and drawing classes, and a lineup of guest speakers.
Boldut, Ko and the other organizers decided to take a leadership role in the event because of personal connections and experiences they’ve had or seen. Boldut’s mother works as a mental health counsellor, gaining interest because of her work in the community. Ko has close acquaintances who are in need of support. “I personally know people in the community that struggle from mental health issues,” Ko said. “It is painful to hear that they feel they can’t speak up about their difficulties because of the stigma around mental health.”
The event will take place Saturday, April 29 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the field at Gleneagle, at the corner of Guildford Way and Lansdowne Drive. It is a drop-in style event with no admission fee.
