Yesterday (January 28th) was the annual Bell Let’s Talk Day initiative, a day dedicated to the promotion of mental illness as a serious problem and to help get rid of the stigma that surrounds it (which is also one of the goals of the Mental Health Awareness Club!). 109,451,718 text messages, phone calls, Facebook shares, and #BellLetsTalk tweets on this one day means that Bell will be donating a grand total of $5,472,585.90 to mental health initiatives in Canada! In the past, Bell has donated $1 million to UBC in order to open the Bell Youth Mental Health Impact Project, the goal of which is to encourage young adults (i.e. university students) to find the help and services they need to overcome their struggles with mental illness. I applaud Bell for taking on such an important initiative and look forward to March 14th 2014, when Clara Hughes, Olympian and official spokesperson for Bell Let’s Talk, goes on her national bicycle tour to raise awareness for mental health. A huge thank you to anyone that tweeted/texted/Facebook shared, YOU made a difference!
Scrolling through Facebook yesterday, I saw some awesome shares by friends about the resources they have used in the past to cope, so I thought I would share them here as well:
http://www.cmha.ca/ – Canadian Mental Health Association
http://www.crisiscentre.bc.ca/ – Crisis Centre BC
http://www.students.ubc.ca/livewelllearnwell/explore-wellness/wellness-centre/ – UBC Wellness Centre
