Mental Health Awareness Week 2020 — Masks, Unmasked — Post MHAW Write-up

This year, Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) took place on 17 to 21 August with the theme of Masks, Unmasked. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, this year’s MHAW was unlike any other, taking place almost entirely online with a small exhibition at the canteen walkway. In spite of the sudden changes and restrictions, however, MHAW 2020 proceeded smoothly, and we in the Peer Helpers Programme hope it taught you a bit more about the importance and prevalence of mental health in our daily lives, especially during crises like these.

Throughout the week, you might have noticed our exhibition located at the canteen walkway that touched on a variety of topics related to mental health. These included acceptance of different body types and stress management. The posters were made by Peer Helper seniors for past MHAWs, brought out to be displayed again. A photo-taking booth was also set up for students to make memories with others, along with a blackboard to pen down encouraging notes for others to read.

Pictures of exhibition posters

Other than the exhibition, MHAW 2020 also included various online talks, sharings and film screenings every day for participants to sign up for, with two sessions per day. The first 300 people who signed up for and attended these sessions received a special goody bag from the Raffles Guidance Centre in addition to the free gifts generously provided by CHAT Hub for the entire school. Despite the unfamiliar medium of the sessions, they were still pulled off without much of a hitch.

The online sessions started off on Monday with the screening of two short films: “The Buddy” by Jason Lee and “Honey, You Look Fine” by Jennifer Leonforte. The films touched on themes such as acceptance of those who are different from us and the struggles people with mental health or neurological conditions might face in our society. Both films are available for free online for you viewing pleasure. After the films, we had a talk by Ms Bettina Yap from Care Corner Singapore who shared about the importance of emotions in our lives, touching on how we will always need our emotions no matter how much we hate them. She also touched on how people might struggle with their emotions and how we can deal with them to prevent them from spiralling out of control.

The next day, Dr Liow Pei Hang, a psychiatrist from Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, came online to share about her experiences as a professional psychiatrist and give advice on a career path in psychiatry. After her insightful sharing, the Singapore Association for Mental Health came online to talk about trauma. Their talk provided those present a deeper understanding of this issue that is surprisingly prevalent in our society as well as tips on how to identify potential sufferers of trauma and help them cope with what they are going through.

On Wednesday, we invited Ms Nicole Kay, founder of the Tapestry Project SG, who shared about her battle with clinical depression. She also gave great insights and tips for those who were going through something similar and were in need of help. After her deeply personal sharing, we also invited CHAT (Community Health Assessment Team) to talk about the prevalence of mental health issues among the youth population in Singapore. CHAT is a national outreach and mental health check programme under the Institute of Mental Health, and thus they provided us with a closer look at mental health issues and disorders among our youth and just how prevalent and significant they are in our society.

On Thursday, we invited Mr Zheng Liren, a registered social worker, to share about how the COVID-19 pandemic, a very large-scale issue that has impacted the international community on an unprecedented scale, has affected our local society from the point of view of a social worker. He shared about how different members of the community are currently facing new struggles because of this crisis that we have never experienced before, with issues such as abuse and lack of access to technology for home-based learning being raised. His sharing gave us a much more personal perspective of the pandemic and made us more aware about the more grounded effects such crises can have. After him was Ms Ma Jialin, one of our Heads of Department for Student Well-Being, who shared some useful mindfulness techniques for us to apply in our daily life. These include the 4/7/8, 4/4 and 7/11 breathing techniques. She also reminded us that these techniques do not have to be done daily if we are too stressed to complete them and that we should always focus on the end goal of stress management, and not the specific steps to get there.

Finally, for the grand finale of MHAW 2020, we had Ms Mahita Vas, a local author diagnosed with bipolar disorder, who answered our various questions about issues ranging from the very real struggles people with mental disorders face regularly to media representation of mental disorders. Ms Mahita also emphasised the importance of self-care, and the significant benefits it can bring to our mental health. After her interactive session, we ended off MHAW 2020 with a screening of the short film ‘Lost Focus’. The film, which is available on YouTube, explored themes of depression and suicide and showed how an unhealthy and unsupportive environment at home can put people at risk. A highly emotional journey, it had our audience invested through the whole 30 minutes, and ended the week on a sombre yet satisfying note.

The exhibition and online sessions were not all that MHAW 2020 had to offer, however. Our publicity team also prepared an alternate reality game, or ARG, for students to participate in and win exclusive prizes. A coded message was embedded in the caption of our Instagram post promoting the event, sending participants on a virtual trail to uncover a hidden message. The first 10 participants who managed to get to the end won Professor Braun Cafe vouchers. By the end of the week, 7 vouchers were won by our sharp-witted participants. Congratulations!

Overall, MHAW 2020 went as smoothly as it could despite the unfamiliar conditions under which it had to be run. While there were definitely things that could have been improved on, it was still an enjoyable and enriching week for us. There was a lot to learn throughout the week about mental health, and how we can help ourselves as well as others with such a delicate and sensitive issue. We would like to thank all who worked their hardest to make MHAW 2020, Masks, Unmasked, possible, and we would also like to thank you for supporting us and supporting MHAW during these unprecedented times.

More details about synopsis of MHAW 2020 can be found here.