Grace Low Shing Wei Sr2ScA
Yiap Ning Xuan Sr2ScI
To pay more attention to the mental health and well-being of our students, Kuen Cheng High School Psychology Club held the Mental Hygiene Week 2022 with the title of “We are all in this together” on the Zoom video platform from June 7th to 9th. The activities of the week also consisted of two online Workshops, separating two different age groups for a better understanding, especially on depression, its symptoms, causes and the support available. Mental Hygiene Workshops were held on June 7th and 8th, respectively from 3 pm to 4:15 pm.
With the theme, the Club hoped the workshop would be able to allow students to understand the feelings of depression patients through personal experience. At the beginning of the event, the host made a simple introduction to mental hygiene as the opening, so that students could understand what mental hygiene was. The World Health Organization (WHO) believes that mental hygiene is a state. In this state, everyone can recognize their own potential, be able to adapt to normal living pressures, work effectively, and further contribute in the improvement of the way of living in their respective community. Since 2009, the problem of mental hygiene has seriously affected people’s lives, but most governments have only spent rare fees in this regard. Therefore, WHO sets October 10th as a mental hygiene day of the year to raise awareness about mental illness.
Then, the host officially entered the “Look” session. The host first showed and read some sentences and words one by one, and let students think of the idea of seeing these words in the chat box. After that, the host played a film. The content of the film was to allow some experiencers to read the Weibo of depression patients without knowing it and saying their feelings. The experiencers in the film at first didn’t care about these words, and thought it was just a complaint of ordinary people. After knowing what depression is, they began to feel guilty and regretful. And this is the purpose of the “Look” session, so that students are aware of others. When we see or hear the people around us say these words, we should not feel unwilling to determine or settle down. Attach importance to their emotions and ideas, because these may be a signal for depression patients to ask for help from the outside world.
Next, the workshop enters the “Listen” session. The host played two pieces of audio, namely the words that patients often hear and the words they really wanted to hear in their hearts and send in the chat box. The purpose of this session is to make students understand that patients with depression are not justified, but to accompany and listen to avoid the use of perfunctory and injured words to hurt them.
The next session of the program was “Move”. The host led the participants to play “The Last GoodNight”, which is a game originated in Taiwan. The storyline was about the journey of an undergraduate named He Le, searching for his lost kitten Mimi. Players would encounter different choices that would lead to different endings and therefore, they had to think cautiously before making a decision. As the saying goes, “Look before you leap.” What it implies is that we must always think carefully before speaking to avoid saying inappropriate words that would hurt other people’s feelings.
Moving on was the “Enjoy the sunset” session. The host taught the participants some knowledge and myths about depression and ways to prevent it. According to the World Health Organization, there are at least 350 million people with depression worldwide, and about 15% of them will suffer from it during the trough of their lives. The simplest and most common way to prevent depression is to have adequate sleep, maintain a healthy diet and exercise regularly.
The host also shared a Facebook page called Hing Ho Traditional Chinese Medicine Healthcare. This page has a lot of knowledge related to depression. For instance, brain hormonal disorder is one of the causes of depression. On the other hand, the host also recommended some movies related to depression, namely “Soul”, “Les Intranquilles” “Cry Me a Sad River” and also a Chinese game called “越郁“. At the end of the session, the host introduced several celebrities who passed away due to depression, including Leslie Cheung, Qiao Renliang and Chester Bennington.
Before the end of the workshop, there was a session of “Emotional Trash Can”. The host sent a Padlet link to the participants, so that the students can write anything on it, including their recent mood and thoughts, suggestions on the workshop, or share their experiences. All content will be kept confidential, and the Committee will reply to all their comments.
After a group photo was taken, The “Immersive” workshop successfully ended. The host expressed her appreciation towards all participants for attending the workshop and all the preparations made by the Committee for this event. Hopefully people would be more aware of the mental health problems and learn to help someone they know in dealing with depression.
