Humanity Gives works with various Youth clubs in the UK. Engaging with young people is important to us as we are in a position to help provide an understanding of the world, and we believe there is nowhere better to start then with our youth.
Youth clubs aim to keep many young people of the streets, they provide a safe space for young people to discuss their thoughts and they offer advice and guidance on many topics including, education choices, career advice, social wellbeing and contraception
Humanity Gives provides external support to our youth clubs by engaging with young people as we fund activities requested and relating to specific topics, beginning with mental health awareness.
In a recent session we explored young people and mental Health.
The group suggested there is a possible stigma towards mental health conditions, and this can often cause young people to feel isolated and discriminated against, we followed on to research statistics.
We found mental health illnesses and conditions have an impact on thousands of people every day. The Mental Health Foundation includes statistics such as, in 2014, 19.7% of people in the UK aged 16 and over showed symptoms of anxiety or depression.
Adolescents ages 11-18 are also impacted by mental illness as 21.4% of them will experience a mental health condition during some point in their life. The group also discovered the statistics may be higher than shown as many people are unable to come forwards about their struggles.
We then chose to focus on one condition and together we composed a list of feelings, and attributes that can be associated with young people and depression
• Persistent sad, anxious, “broken” or “empty”
• Feeling hopeless
• Feeling guilt, worthless & helplessness
• Loss of interest or pleasure in hobbies and activities that were once enjoyed
• Decreased energy & feeling fatigue,
• Difficulty making decisions and concentrating
• Insomnia, early-morning awakening, or oversleeping
• Appetite and/or weight loss or overeating and weight gain
• Thoughts of death or suicide; suicide attempts
• Restlessness, irritability
• Persistent physical symptoms that do not respond to treatment, such as headaches, digestive disorders, and chronic pain
We ended our session on collecting ideas on what measures can be taken to aid and relieve depression. Our ideas will be presented in the next blog!