An esteemed group of selected leaders from around the country, who serve as Active Minds, Inc., national student advisers, who help strategize about programs, branding and fundraising for mental health problems and help the people know about mental health awareness.
It was founded by Alison Malmon when she was a junior at the University of Pennsylvania. It was established due to the fact that Malmon’s brother ended his life due to mental health problems.
Alison founded this organization to prevent future tragedies such as the death of her brother known as “open minds.”
It did so well its first year and had great support that open minds spread to other campuses.
Kate Hard was a student at Georgetown University and supported the whole mental awareness and founded Active Minds.
Perris Edwards is a psychology student and an active member of Active Minds, and is involved to educate the public about mental health awareness, and let people know that everyone can have a disorder even if minor and that there is ways to get help.
This week was stress week, so the club is promoting distress especially because finals are coming up. Showing students how to get rid of anxiety and stress and other normal disorders people deal with on a daily basis.
Active Minds also does this cool thing called the post secret, allowing one to unanimously post a secret on a post card and submit it to Active Minds, who will post it on the wall at school. In doing this it gives the students a sense that they’re not alone and have help.
The students are very active and do volunteer work at a good variety of mental health patients, providing games with prizes for the patients, and it’s a great opportunity for the students to get hands on work within their field, and could intern and possibly receive a job offer.
Oriel Gomez, a political science major, joined the club “the fact that Active Minds really try to educate the public about health awareness and how people should erase the negative stigma against mental disorders.”
One-in-four students suffer from a mental illness. It can be a minor disorder simply as depression, these sorts of things can really push someone into harm’s way and/or ruin someone’s life.
Active Minds will continue to spread the word to students about mental health awareness for the following years.
