Health and Wellness
The Singapore Association for Mental Health is a voluntary welfare organisation. It aims to promote mental illness as kind of health awareness to the public. They also want to educate people on how to prevent mental illness, how to look after mental patients and to reduce the mistaken belief that surrounds mental illness.
To increase the awareness of teenagers, the organization can give talks about mental illness to primary, secondary, Junior College and polytechnic students. An adventure camp, that has no age limit, with activities that are meaningful can be organized to attract the attention of students. For example, students can take turn becoming a patient while the other will take care of the “patient”. In the midst of this camp, students can make new friends and have to chance to enlarge their social network. I believe students can learn and understand better via hands-on session compared to the theories and long talk or explanations.
On the other hand, campaigns and road shows with interesting activities can be held to increase the awareness of the public. To get their attention, performers can be invited to perform for the crowd. Cards can be given out to the public to get a stamp at every station they had visited to understand the situation. After they had visited all the stations, they can use the card to redeem their free gifts and even participate in the lucky draw.
Thus, the public’s awareness of mental illness will be increased. They might use what they had learnt in future to help mental illness patients. If everyone lend a hand to the patients, no one will feel neglected.
Resources taken from: Singapore Association for Mental Health
