UTMental health campaign in provincial finals

Students from the University of Toronto Mississauga have been named among the top ten finalists in the Council of Ontario Universities Mental Health 2.0 campaign.

The campaign uses social media to promote positive change in mental health and remove the stigma associated with mental illness.

University students across Ontario were invited to submit a project idea that used videos, websites and social media pages to raise the profile of mental health.

Among the finalists were a small group of U of T Mississauga students who produced a video blog titled “UTMental Health Vloggers”.

Students Jena Fabroa, Nolan Anderson, Jack Liao, Ro’a Saafan, Greg Henry and Chris Hugelmann produced the video blog as a way to promote dialogue around mental health.

Students, course instructors, Health and Counselling Centre staff, along with U of T Vice-President and U of T Mississauga Principal Deep Saini all contributed videos to the blog to help remove the stigma associated with mental illness.

A judging panel of experts in accessibility, mental health and social media will now decide the top three entries with first place to be awarded $1,500, and second and third place to be awarded $1,000 and $500 respectively.

A People’s Choice Award will also be presented to the campaign that attracts the most public votes in an online poll.

U of T Mississauga team representative Jena Fabroa said it was exciting to see the UTMental campaign receive so much recognition.

“A lot of students are silent about mental health so we wanted to put the topic in focus and de-stigmatize mental health,” Jena said.

“Some students are struggling with mental illness and feel alone and don’t know that other students are going through the same thing.

“We wanted to show students there are resources here on campus that can help but we also wanted to share stories to help people feel less alone.

“Even if we don’t get the most votes, the important thing is the message is out there about mental health and support for mental illness.”

The People’s Choice online poll will run until Monday 3 March 2014.

To vote for Jena Fabroa and the UTMental Health Vloggers go to http://mentalhealth20.ca/vote/

All winners will be announced on Tuesday, March 18, 2014.