Hello! We are a group of 14 young teenagers in high school who all struggle with different forms of mental illness. We are writing to you because we have an important message that we need to share with the world. Instead of letting of letting our personal struggles take over, we decided to speak up and say something! We created a project called “Open door, open mind” that started in a class made to help us manage our anxiety and learn how to cope. Our mission is to erase the stigma around mental illness, and help people get the help they need, and know how to help others. It’s time someone spoke up about this. All of us have been through different experiences. From bullying to hospilization, but our stories are not over yet. We have been to a public school to present and do workshops with young students around educating people on mental health and how to get help. We would like to make this project so much bigger but we need help. We don’t have funding to get us our supplies, and we don’t have resources to get our project out there. We have done a workshop with the staff at our school and we are planning to run mental health week for the students at our school.
We want our team to spread the word as far as possible. Even if it’s two schools, we are still making a difference. We have already managed to help a few kids get the help they need, but we want to do so much more. These are things that have affected our lives so much, and we would really appreciate your help.
Anika Berringer