Youth Champs Story on Fiji Sun

Here's an excerpt from the Fiji Sun story on the Youth Champs:

Despite the gloomy political climate early this year, a youth consultation forum for a proposed National Suicide Prevention policy was organised.

The young participants represented other youth affiliations from a diverse group.

There were those from sexual minorities groups like the Chinese youth association, peer educators from the University of the South Pacific and several other youth advocates.

The forum was a success with participants sharing personal stories, views and experiences.
At the end of the forum the participants stood up and challenged each other to continue advocating mental health issues.

The organisation targets other youth because of the stigma attached to mental illness and that many young people refrain from accessing mental health services.

Youth and Mental Health project officer, Tiriseyani Naulivou said the champs’ main objective was to help reduce this stigma through their advocacy activities.

“Following that forum Partners in Community Development organised a few other Youth and Mental Health related activities, which many of these same young people attended,” she said. "This to us was an indication of the commitment level these dedicated young people had made to our work in addressing Mental Health issues.”

The cause resulted in the Partners in Community Development Fiji then organising an awareness camp for youths where they were provided with the basic Mental Health knowledge and skills that they would need in their work. The camp was such a success that from there raises a ‘Youth Champs for Mental Health group.

Beginning with only 14 members the champ numbers has grown to about 30 and are still getting expressions of interest from many people who are eager to join.

“This is an indication that young people are aware and concerned about Mental Health issues in Fiji. It’s just a matter of involving them, hearing them out and ensuring that their needs are being met in terms of mental health” Tirisiyani said.

They have an executive committee made up of a President, Secretary, Spokesperson and project leaders who are in charge of specific mental health activities for the year.

There is also a board of advisor made up of Tiriseyani Naulivou a member of the National Council for the Prevention of Suicide; a Ministry of Youth rep; and a Psychiatrist from the St Giles Hospital.

“Right now we are still Suva based. But we are working on creating champs in the other parts of Fiji through other Mental Health officers under the Ministry of Health” Tiriseyani said.

The YC4MH endeavor is to reduce stigma against mental illness through developing youth friendly mental health information, using the creative arts to create awareness of mental health and suicide prevention, working in collaboration with other mental health stakeholders in organizing mental health related activities, and advocating for mental health issues .

“Youth are most vulnerable to Mental Illness and Suicide because of the rapid changes they experience at this phase of life. The latest suicide statistics in Fiji shows that a great percent of these figures represent youth. Yet, there are no specific Mental Health services available to young people in Fiji” she adds.

The youth champs are taking on a ‘youth 4 youth’ approach where they go out and educate other young people and advocate together to ensure that specific youth targeted mental health services are available and accessible by youth. They also tap into young peoples’ creative talent to get them to start thinking positively about mental health issues.

“We worked with Rishikul Sanatan College in the development of their winning dance concept for Suicide Prevention. Partners in Community Development also sponsored the production of a Mental Health theme song, the lyrics to which was written by two of our youth a champ” She said.

The song was launched at the St Giles Open Day on Saturday 04, October. We hope to have this inspirational piece on the radio for young people to hear and be inspired and encouraged.
Tiriseyani said that the group is so grateful for all the support they receive.

“We have a lot of support from other Mental Health stakeholders, which is always strengthening us. These include the Ministry of Health, Psychiatric Survivors Association and the Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific International” she adds.

Earlier this year, the youth champ met with counterparts from seven other island countries who were excited to see the work of the youth champs in Fiji.

“Since then, they have decided to go back to their own countries and create their own youth champ groups. So, the youth champs will start to have their own regional network. Here in Fiji, even though we are still Suva based, we are working closely with Mental Health Project Officers from other divisions to set up an extended youth network” Tiriseyani said

The future look bright for the youth champ and the plan for the future is well under way.

“Right now we’re still a young group and we’re working on figuring out how we are going to arrange our activities for the next few years This is a challenge because there is such a need for our work and existence that many individuals and organisations are keen to work with us. However, right now we are on a tight budget and need to plan our activities accordingly”