This year’s National Mental Health Month Awareness Campaign, which the Mental Health Foundation Australia (MHFA) is extremely proud, was once again a huge success. During this month, we intended to reach out to and educate as many Australians as possible to help reduce stigma and facilitate positive and non-judgemental discussions surrounding the important topic of mental health in Australia. With one in five Australians experiencing a mental health illness, it is time we gave mental health due attention, and that is exactly what the MHFA wanted to achieve.
The theme for this year’s National Mental Health Month Awareness Campaign was ‘Building Resilience, Communities and Connections.’ This theme focused on raising awareness of mental health in various industries and communities. Every individual has faced, and many are still facing, unprecedented challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and we acknowledge that there is much healing to be done following the pandemic and support for all is at the core of this.
During this National Mental Health Month Awareness Campaign, the Foundation organised various events across Australia from the 1st to the 31st of October. To facilitate this task, the Foundation launched its Community Partnership programs and continued MHFA Youth and Future Leaders' Programs comprising a dedicated network of volunteers across the country, with the aim to reduce the stigma associated with mental health issues within these communities and within the Australian community generally. This year, our multicultural attaché nationwide played a massive role in the success of each event during the month. We are thankful to the many multicultural communities who participated throughout Australia in our mission to provide ‘better mental health for all.’
To begin the proceedings of our National Mental Health Month Awareness Campaign, we organised a national launch of the month in each state and territory capital on 1st October. Other events across the month included our Walk for Mental Health across the country, various mental health symposiums, youth events, multicultural events, webinars on different topics, child and adolescent mental health, a Youth and Future Leader forum, women’s mental health forum, men’s mental health forum, seniors’ mental health webinar, LGBTIQA+ mental health forum, multicultural gala dinners and other interesting and exciting events.
This year, the Foundation once again had a national presence with walks organised in each state and territory of Australia on the same day and time; 17th October, 10:30 am. These walks were an overwhelming success, with many Australians joining the walk and Multicultural Festival. This promoted a greater awareness of mental health, which all walkers thoroughly enjoyed. Our walks were the perfect opportunity for the community to come together to raise awareness and advocate for mental health. We also had the option of a virtual walk with the launch of our MHFA App and dedicated walk website. Reach out on the day of the walk alone was almost 600,000 Australians! We thank and appreciate all ambassadors and volunteers in each state and territory for their efforts.
I want to thank our patrons, our Chairperson, Prof. Peter Barlis, Vice-Chairperson of the MHFA, Mr Jim Goodin board of directors, and our hardworking staff and volunteers for the magnitude of their efforts contributing to the success of NMHM 2022. A special thank you to our manager, Ms Aisha Usman and our wonderful staff: Aisha Usman, Aneka Srinivasan, Aura Goh, Nithya Viswanathan, Susan Warby, Amanda Cops, Ritika Purang, Akshay Subramanian, Athithi Ananthakrishna and Adam Goh for their hard work, commitment, and complete support to the NMHM campaign. I thank our Scientific Advisory Committee members, multicultural community partners and youth and Future Leaders for their continuous guidance and support. We thank our major sponsors, Chemists Own and Australian Unity, Foot Solutions, Ethical Property Investment, Maurice Blackburn, Perpetual Trustees, Bollywood Dance School Australia, and all supporting organisations. I also appreciate the support of our local, state, and federal parliamentarians, partner organisations and all other stakeholders who continue to support the MHFA’s work.
The MHFA will continue to aim for better mental health for all Australians, with a bigger and better National Mental Health Month Awareness Campaign in 2023 and beyond.
I thank everyone involved in this year’s National Mental Health Month campaign and attendees who joined us anywhere and everywhere during these events!
Thank you, Australia!
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