MHAW 2022
2022 brings to you another exciting week of activities promoting mental health organised by the Peer Helpers!
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Check out our gripping introduction video below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v4J8gDSgUYkyzpBChJwjE0zGgpJsxv_Z/view
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Here’s the programme:
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Here are some upcoming events:
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Register for our events using the link below!
MHAW 2022 Talks and Speakers
1 August (Mon) Zoom 430-515pm
INSIGHT CCS (45 min)
Title: It’s hard when you are are hard on yourself – Self Compassion
Synopsis: We all have a critical voice and sometimes we inflict harsh judgments on ourselves for our mistakes and imperfection, hoping they will motivate or scare us to do better, or to prevent ourselves from failing. Come and learn more about this critical voice and how to harness it for growth through self-compassion so that we can start learning to be kinder to and happier with ourselves.
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2 August (Tues) Zoom 430-515pm
Speaker: Carol Loi
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Bio: Carol is a Digital Literacy Educator and Mental Toughness Coach. She provides digital wellness education, mental toughness training as well as leadership and communication skills training to families, educators and youth to enable them to flourish in an increasingly complex world.
Title: Making me attractive
Synopsis: We often spend a good amount of time wondering if other people like us and how they view us. These thoughts often transcend into our actions, behaviours, and even daily choices of what to wear, what to say and where to go! The key to being well-liked is really in liking ourselves first. In this talk, Carol will share on how we can increase our likeability and attractiveness, and live as confident individuals.
3 August (Wednesday) 1pm- 3pm (live)
Inno C
Bio:
Richard Jo, co-founder of Deko
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Richard Shim Jo is the Chief Creative Officer of Deko, with extensive leadership and research experience. He was the founder and president of the Yale-NUS iLab, an organization that aims to spread the spirit of innovation to students. He has also conducted research in various fields such as infectious disease, behavioral ecology, sleep medicine, and cancer biology research.
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Huang Huanyan, co-founder of Deko
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Huang Huanyan is the Chief Design Officer of Deko, with extensive art and research experience. She is the author of two illustrated non-fiction books on mental illnesses, where she shared her own journeys with the aim of inspiring others. She further co-developed resilience and leadership curriculum materials for Raffles Institution and Yale-NUS.
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Title: Embracing Wellness with Colors
Synopsis:
In “Embracing Wellness with Colors”, we will be sharing how our personal journeys in mental health distress has inspired us to support youth mental, such as through the establishment of our social enterprise, Deko. Established in Singapore in 2020, Deko aims to promote education through art. Deko is committed to providing art-based curriculums to educators in Singapore and the USA. Supported by the National Youth Council, Deko aims to communicate complex topics in areas such as mental health in an easy-to-understand manner for youths. Aligned with the UN SDG 4, Deko aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. Today’s talk will also include a sneak peek into our present curriculums on cyber wellness, which includes fun animations and activities! Check out our website http://www.scideko.com for more information!
Name: Ling Shao Tong
Position / Organisation: Manager, Chang Studio
Title of talk: Caring for Others
Short synopsis: Shao Tong is a Raffles alumnus and former Singapore Management University Peer Helper who is familiar with and feels deeply about the topic of mental health. He will be sharing his personal thoughts & experiences on caregiving and self-care.
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4 August
Title: Mental Health Awareness
Mahita will share some facts about mental illness in Singapore, before delving into her personal journey living with bipolar disorder. She is very open about speaking about mental illness, and welcomes questions from the audience.
Video: Shine a light Mahita’s story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmjXD0QWHWM
Bio: Mahita Vas
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After nearly 30 years of working in advertising and the hospitality industry in Singapore, Mahita wrote her first book, Praying To The Goddess Of Mercy, A Memoir of Mood Swings, published by Monsoon Books in 2012. She now spends her time on mental health advocacy and pursuing personal interests including reading and writing. Her first novel, Rain Tree, was published in 2016 by Math Paper Press and was selected for the National Arts Council catalogue, Fiction Singapore 2017/18. Her next novel, It Happened On Scrabble Sunday, published by Marshall Cavendish, is now available in bookstores and will be officially launched in late July. Mahita is married and has twin daughters in their mid-twenties.
MHAW’22 GUEST TALK: MS MAHITA VAS ON MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS
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“There’s nothing to hide. If I want to break the stigma, it has to start with me.” After going through the struggles of having bipolar disorder, Ms Mahita Vas shared her valuable experience with us during the MHAW talk.
Ms Mahita Vas was diagnosed with Type 1 bipolar disorder in 2005, after more than twenty years of struggling with mood swings and suicidal ideation. As a mental health advocate, she speaks candidly about mental health. In this sharing session, she talks about breaking stigma and toxic friendships.
When Ms Mahita was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder in Bali, she realised that her boss, family and friends were all accepting towards her mental illness, but not herself. She was the only one who had difficulties accepting her own conditions, and tried to deny what had happened to her. “I want to be a normal person! I want to be a good mother, a good wife. The only way I can do this is to confront what I have.” Then, Ms Mahita realised that she had to break this self-stigmatisation by being open about it.
“If I try to hide it, or I pretend there’s nothing wrong with me… I know that if I’m pretending anything about my illness, I would not be open about it, and this will only perpetuate the stigma.” Being open was the most important lesson Ms Mahita has learnt on battling stigma.
She introduced a book she wrote— A Good Day to Die: Inside a suicidal mind. “At first, I did not intend to write the book because I didn’t want it to become a suicide manual,” said Ms Mahita. However, after coming across a report from Samaritans of Singapore (SOS) on suicides statistics, which are becoming higher and higher, not even including the number of people who tried suicide and those have thought about it. To her, that was alarming, as she has gone through the same thoughts before. She pointed out that it is easy for people to suicide, but it is hard for the people who are left behind to deal with this trauma.
“It is difficult for those left behind to understand why their loved one would choose to die.” Therefore, with the aim to let people know what’s going on inside a suicidal mind, she wrote and published this book.
Ms Mahita also shared about her experiences in handling relationships. She has been grateful that when she was diagnosed, there were friends who supported her, but some whom she once considered as friends just drifted away.
“That’s fine. I didn’t need them in my life. And when I published my books, they started coming back and wanted to be my friend, and I said: go away.” She then leads a simple social life. She would no longer force herself to socialise with people she dislikes. This was how Ms Mahita made a positive change to improve her conditions.
We are fortunate to have Ms Mahita sharing during the MHAW. Hope that you have gained some insights after reading this article!
MHAW’22 GUEST TALK: EMBRACING WELLNESS WITH COLOURS
MHAW’22 Guest Talk: “Embracing Wellness With Colours” by Richard Jo and Huang Huanyan from Deko
by Jennis Lim
On the third day of talks for Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) 2022, we had the pleasure of inviting the co-founders of Deko, Mr Richard Shim Jo (Chief Creative Officer) and Ms Huang Huanyan (Chief Design Officer), who shared with us about their personal journeys in mental health distress and how their experiences inspired them to support youth mental health through the creation of their social enterprise, Deko.
Established in July 2020, Deko was created with the aim of promoting education through art, by providing art-based curricula to educators in Singapore and the USA with the support of the National Youth Council. Educating youths on complex, multifaceted topics such as mental health is not always a straightforward one, thus Deko aims to communicate these complex topics in an easy-to-understand manner, such as through comics and animations.
With their lovely characters Dumble the Pink Axolotl and Neko the Blue Cat, Deko has gone on to receive media features in Yale-NUS News and Zaobao, and won the Best Pitch Award at RHB Hacks 2021. Yet, the creation of Deko originated from humble beginnings inspired by Richard and Huanyan’s personal stories.
Richard had his fair share of struggles in school. Facing pressure from his parents and his own expectations, he suffered from depression amidst the intense academic stress. Hence, he started creating his own content as a form of stress relief, with his first animation being on the subject of vision loss and mental health. We had the opportunity to watch this short animation, which followed the story of a young girl who, after losing her vision, struggled with many challenges in her life, from being unable to find objects and access reading materials, to letting go of her dreams to become a pilot and dealing with the guilt of being an economic burden on her parents.
As for Huanyan, after moving to a new environment in secondary school, she felt isolated and struggled with anorexia nervosa, a form of eating disorder. In her self-written and illustrated book “Brave Girl Not Eating”, she delves into her journey with anorexia and mental health, which eventually influenced her decision to go into mental health advocacy and creating wellness programmes.
To end off the sharing, Richard and Huanyan also organised an exciting game of charades, where we acted out as many mental health related keywords as a group, from simpler words like ‘happy’ and ‘friends’, to more complex phrases such as ‘setting boundaries’ and ‘supporting each other’. We certainly had fun during this activity, and the speakers also shared more on the keywords, such as the importance of setting healthy boundaries and being creative with self care.
Overall, this was an insightful and enriching talk that allowed us to learn from Richard and Huanyan’s journeys with mental health. Their inspiring anecdotes have shown that despite the struggles we may face individually with our mental health, it is possible for us to not only recover from them, but to even make use of our experiences to contribute towards supporting the mental health of our peers in our own creative ways.
For more information on the work that Deko has been doing, you can check out their website here!