Our Wellbeing Activities on World Mental Health Day
We ran a number of activities on World Mental Health Day this year, highlighting the importance of promoting wellbeing, social activities and speaking to each other more.
On World Mental Health Day 2020, we hosted a number of wellbeing activities to mark the occasion and underline the importance of mental health and wellbeing.
World Mental Health Day (WMHD) takes place on 10th October every year and is marked around the world to promote advocacy and awareness on mental health and to work to address stigma around the subject.
This year we hosted a number of activities at the Meritage Centre in Hendon, London Borough of Barnet which took place in a format where people were either socially distanced or meeting as part of a support bubble.
Mental health problems have been a major issue in 2020, with incidences of loneliness, anxiety, depression and other problems on the rise in light of the Coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown measures in the United Kingdom.
In this context social activities, the chance to get active and express oneself and the opportunity to talk to others about emotions is more important than ever.
At the beginning of the day our partner from Flower Bank Ursula Stone, organised a ‘Flower Bomb’ for one of the students of her Creative Flower Workshop. This involved leaving a bunch of flowers for her student Irene to find, as a thoughtful act of kindness. You can watch Ursula explaining the ‘Flower Bomb’ below and a video clip of Irene finding the flowers.
After this our Wellbeing Club hosted their regular singing class where participants took turn singing a variety of songs, including popular songs by the Beatles. After this the Club hosted their dancing club, where this time participants performed traditional Chinese dancing. Later the Club finished off by performing some Cantonese opera in traditional dress.
While WMHD takes place annually, the unique circumstances of this year led to an interesting and unusual day. While those same circumstances underlined the vital importance of supporting positive mental health and wellbeing.
Caring for ourselves and each other, talking and listening more, and speaking to friends, family and loved ones can all make a world of difference.