Note Green is the Color for Mental Health
World Mental Health Day is quickly approaching. This year, more than ever due to COVID, we need to make sure Mental Health is on everyone’s minds. World Mental Health Day 2021- Theme – Mental Health in an Unequal World VIDEO
Now is the time to get started! Let’s help the mentally ill and help those struggling with mental health issues. It is time for real change. Click here for many ideas of what needs to change.
What Do You Think The Biggest Problem Is With The Mental Health System?” by Mental Health Advocates
Note that many of these problems have very easy solutions if we could get the right people to listen to them.
The mental health system is failing many sick people around the world and it needs to stop. If we, as advocates join together, we will have a louder voice! We need mental health to be talked about because it can literally save lives. People should know the signs of mental illness, where they can go to get help, and that there is no shame in asking for help. #stopthestigma and #stopthediscrimination
Let’s get businesses, politicians, the media, and hospitals to take notice! Let’s get real change.
The first step is to get people to take notice that mental health is important. We can do that by having all mental health advocates working together to convince people to wear green on World Mental Health Day. With diligence we can get places like the White House, Eifel Tower, Australian Opera House, and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai to name a few to turn their lights green, on October 10th.
My dream is that all media platforms have stories about mental health the week prior to October 10th. I hope there are events and parades in every city and town in the world commemorating World Mental Health Day.
This is doable. I just need you to commit to 1-5 minutes every day from now until October 10th to make it happen. I have been called a visionary by many people. I have the vision, but can’t do it alone. I need all your help.
If you have read thus far, consider yourself part of the team. We need you! Take a few moment and fill out the form by clicking here. This will help us share ideas of what other people are doing and I will start sharing blogs when I get some lists. If you do sign up, it can be anonymous.
You don’t have to sign up to help.
If nothing else, please start using the hashtags #worldmentalhealthday2021 and #colortheworldgreen4mentalhealth on everything you post. Share this blog with others or encourage them to use these hashtags.
Decide you are going to write to a business, hospital, media platform, or politician every day. See? It could be done if everyone spent 1-5 minutes every day. There are millions of mental health advocates. THIS CAN BE DONE!
Below, I have included two emails I sent out today to my local media channels and hospitals. I will work on one for politicians soon. Please feel free to use any part of my letters you want.
LETTER TO MEDIA:
Hi! Some of you might know me because I write about mental health topics and organized Embrace Life Day. I am a world-renowned mental health advocate residing in North Carolina and am currently working on getting people around the world to recognize World Mental Health Day on October 10th.
My goal is to get buildings and monuments to light up green on that day and have people wear green. (Green is the color for mental health) My dream is that the White House, Eiffel Tower, The Sydney Opera House, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, etc all be green that day.
My aim has always been to unite mental health advocates so that we have a louder voice. There are days, months, weeks set aside for each mental illness. There is Mental Illness Awareness Week in the US that was adopted in 1990 and goes practically unnoticed each year. Mental Health Month gets some attention, but in my opinion, not like it should. Now more than ever, with COVID, people need to be educated to know the signs and to know there is no shame in getting help. #erasethestigma
I write thousands of unanswered emails constantly. I spent a few days non-stop about a month ago writing to everyone I could think of including the person at WHO in charge of World Mental Health Day and can’t get anywhere.
That is why I am writing to you. I am hoping that we could start small in the Triad and the local media can help. I am hoping that you somehow feature me letting people know what my ambitions are and why. I am open about my mental illness and would share anything. If I am not the feature, let it just be that “The Triad is Getting Ready to Go Green for World Mental Health Day in October.”I plan to start contacting local businesses, hospitals, and local politicians and hopefully get some momentum going.
In addition to doing that, it would be helpful if you reached out to people that would help with this endeavor. If you are able to provide me with contacts, I can take the initiative and do it too.
I am slowly gearing up for hashtag campaigns world-wide. The first one is “worldmentalhealthday2021. I want people to start talking about it now and organizing ways to mark the day. October is not that far away.
I hope to get that hashtag to start catching on like wildfire now and go thru October. After that, I want to do #colortheworldgreen4mentalhealth.
If you are able to do a feature story on me, we could ask your listeners to come up with ideas of more hashtags and encourage them to reach out to others and plan events.
I could go into all of my accomplishments and get on my soap box, but I have taken up enough of your time. I just hope and pray that one, some, or all of you will help me make this happen. You can explore my websites in my signature for more information about me and my accomplishments if you are interested.
Thanks for your time and I hope to hear from you soon.
Sincerely,Michelle Lande “Hughes” Clark
Bipolar Bandit BlogFacebookTwitterPinterestInstagramTik TokYouTubeTumblrThe MightyWe Go Health
Founder of Advocates for People with Mental Illnesses and Mental Health Advocates United
I’m happy to announce that I’ve been nominated for the 10th annual WEGO Health Awards. Please help me by clicking on the link. Scroll down to where you see Endorse Patient Leader and then click there. I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!https://www.wegohealth.com/Michelle42/awards
Letter to One Hospital CEO
(Yours will obviously be different, but this gives you an idea of how to introduce yourself and get right to the point. Try to relate to them somehow. For example, I said his hospital had donated to my event in the past.) I also asked if he could connect me with any businesses or any media. )
Hi! I just emailed the (paper) and all the media channels in the Triad with the email I have copied/pasted below. I could not find an email to send to you or anyone in the Behavioral Health section of (hospital). I have worked with (their hospital) before when I did Embrace Life Day and they donated money for it. I, unfortunately, lost my contact person.
I am hoping you can help me by sending me some email addresses of people who would help. I see that you are in Charlotte so this would obviously not have to be just in the Triad. I am just trying to start locally and that is explained below.
In addition, I am also looking for lists of business contacts that would participate in my campaign of coloring the world green for World Mental Health Day. If you have any media connections, that would help too.
If you don’t know anyone with a mental illness, you are lucky. If you do, you can see the importance of this happening this year especially because of COVID.
(I then copied and pasted the letter I sent to the media.)
MAKE IT EASY ON YOURSELF: Write emails that you can just copy and paste over and over. You might have to tweak things, but it definitely saves A LOT of time and you can reach out to a lot more people.
I hope you have gotten this far and are energized! Let me know about your excitement by writing in comments, filling out the form or emailing me at bipolarbandit@gmail.com
It can get discouraging and it helps to know there are people listening to my ideas and implementing them.
If you are a a regular reader of mine, please take a minute and endorse me for an award I am up for. It is really simple.
I’m happy to announce that I’ve been nominated for the 10th annual WEGO Health Awards. Please help me by clicking on the link. Scroll down to where you see Endorse Patient Leader and then click there. I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!https://www.wegohealth.com/Michelle42/awards
Bipolar Bandit (Michelle Clark) 