Mental Health Awareness
Mental health is an ongoing challenge that high school students around the world face. SFY leaders built on their own experiences of mental health challenges organized the #MentalhealthAwareness2021 project. This was the product of a weeks-long study group that engaged literature and recent trends in mental health. The #MentalhealthAwareness2021 Campaign came at a convenient and needed time. As students coped with severe academic ruptures and other pressures due to covid, the project made an important contribution to highlight robust mental health as key to student success inside and outside of the classroom.
Mardan
We organized a total of 7 sessions in 5 different schools, which engaged and informed 335 students, as young as 6th graders to as old as 12th graders. The sessions highlighted the role that mental health plays in our lives. The session also highlighted how pressures like parental, peer or academic performance pressure can have real life deteriorating consequences on mental and by extension on physical health.
Sawabi
Moreover, the sessions facilitated key conversations on importance of mental healthcare, and healthy practices to deal with deteriorating mental health. As well as brought to surface the numerous mental health challenges students face due to surging academic, parental, peer and other kinds of pressures. As per the student’s experiences, 90% of them faced educational and academic pressure followed by parental pressure and social pressure. Mainly students identified with academic pressure, which greatly affects their mental health and weakens their capacity to perform, resulting in low academic achievement. Students also identified parental pressure as playing an important role in impacting Mental Health.
Abbottabad
Furthermore, one of the principal goals was to create spaces where students felt encouraged and safe to engage and share about their mental health problems. These sessions highlighted key coping strategies as well as other healthy practices that could help alleviate such pressures in the short and long term. Students from all ages actively and eagerly participated in group discussions on coping strategies. This project has provided us imperative grassroots experience in scaling and improving our campaign in the next academic year.