“A very beautiful message…”
Thursday the 10th of October was World Mental Health Day, an international day for global mental health education, awareness and advocacy against social stigma. Inspired by a suggestion by our Head of Boarding, Mrs Wilkinson, the Charity club led a day of raising both funds and awareness for the charity Young Minds, beginning with an assembly in which students shared personal stories about times when they have struggled with their mental health, and concluding with a cinema night of thematically linked movies. Not only did the fundraising events raise CHF274.55 to support the fantastic Young Minds charity, but the courage of the girls who opened up in assembly about their own experiences helped to inspire others throughout the day to have conversations on the topic. Below, Charity club member Ana Paula, G9, Mexico, shares her impressions of our #HelloYellow themed World Mental Health Day.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to witness and experience the joy of #HelloYellow mental health day! Surval students turned this day into a very creative and happy day for everyone by organizing a very joyful and colorful event with many activities led by the Charity Club. We all coordinated ourselves to wear a yellow piece of clothing or accessory such as a shirt or even a hair band. My favorite outfit was Soledad’s, due to her very creative, colorful and stylish outfit – especially her jeans with rainbows on them!
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We started the day with an assembly lead by five of our students that informed us about the purpose of the day and shared some truly inspiring and brave stories. As an activity at the end of the assembly and during the day, we had a wall with all the girls’ faces on it, and everyone had to write a positive and kind message about each girl on a post it and then stick it on the wall. This was followed by a photo-shoot against this colorful wall using the #HelloYellow props made by the students in the Charity Club.
So what is #HelloYellow? #HelloYellow is a campaign by a charity called Young Minds that helps young people with their mental health. Young Minds have a website where you can go and have a look to find out more about how they can help. I totally recommend you look at the website because you can find information for if you ever have a problem and also there are Young Minds volunteers that would be very happy to help you by talking to you about your problems.
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Because Young Minds is a charity, we did fundraising activities throughout the day to support them. The Charity club also made a really creative activity where they filled a jar with candies and we could pay CHF1 per guess to guess how many candies were in there; we were able to donate money to charity and participate in the game, and the guess who got closest to the right amount won all the candies. (NOTE: Congratulations to joint winners, Roby G, Bianca and Rosalie for winning! There were a total of 159 candies; the girls guessed 160. Don’t eat them all at once…) My friends had also made delicious yellow lemon cupcakes to share with everyone, and sold them to support the charity. I bought one as a gift for my friend Soledad and she was very happy about it ;)
At the end of the day we watched a movie named “Little Miss Sunshine”. It has a very beautiful message which is: never hide your feelings and try to express them. My friends and I had a conversation about how everyone has gone through difficult times in their lives and how it has affected them each differently but, after all, the way they overcame their issue helped them in a positive way today. I also posted a picture on social media so my friends can know more about the importance of talking about our mental health, #HelloYellow and Young Minds.
During this day I learned a lot about the importance of talking about our mental health, and it made me reflect that we all pass through difficult times in our lives and we should learn how to express ourselves and look for help because we are not alone and there’s always going to be someone to help us.
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