Delta Secondary Students Promote Mental Health Awareness

Delta Secondary School addresses mental health problems.

From April 6 to 9, 2009, Delta Secondary’s Academic Leadership 11 class hosted Project George, a week filled with presentations and events promoting awareness of mental health and inspiring compassion and understanding towards eating disorders, emotional disorders, stress and anti-discrimination.

“The topics were chosen mainly by classroom and group discussion as well as a series of voting,” says Ashley Rempel, one of the project’s student leaders. “This event is important because it gives students the chance to be educated on the most vital thing in their lives – their health.”

The topics selected for the week affect a lot of people – but most are poorly educated about these issues.

“When people are made more aware of issues such as these, they have the chance to make a change in our school and community for the good,” says Nathan Kirkegaard, the other student leader.

The event presented information in creative and interactive ways through: presentations; yoga; sales of smoothies and student-designed puzzle-piece Project George t-shirts; games; a dunk tank where teachers were the ones in the wet seat; a raffle; a hand print mural in an outside courtyard and other events that took place at lunch hour throughout the week.

The response from students, teachers and the community was overwhelming. Each day’s event was swarmed with visitors, and over 100 Project George shirts were sold. Executing these ideas didn’t come cheap, but the community rose to the occasion.

The class received donations from businesses throughout the community, including Save-On- Foods, Starbucks, 7-11, McDonald’s and Dairy Queen. The students were also well funded by Delta Youth Support Line Society (DYSL), based in Tsawwassen. DYSL runs a thrift store in Tsawwassen, provides counselling and donates $1,500 annually to secondary schools in Delta as part of their Youth Initiatives program.

“Research shows that youth influence youth more than their immediate families, teachers and media personalities do,” says Debbie Lindsey, the executive director of Delta Youth Support Line (DYSL). “Youth who show an interest in issues of the day, like mental health awareness, should be mentored and encouraged because they, more than anyone else, will influence how people are treated day in day out in the schools and in life.”

The Academic Leadership class hopes that the efforts of the week have inspired empathy, as well as ideas for more events to come.