Afraa Kori
In support of Mental Health Month and One Foot Forward challenge, Salutegenics held two fundraising walks at Maribyrnong River.
Director of Salutegenics and Psychologist Maria Ruberto said it’s important to raise awareness for mental health and help to reduce the impact of mental illness and suicide.
Every day in Australia, 9 people will die by suicide and 1 in 5 Australians experience symptoms of mental illness each year.
Mental illness can be debilitating and can have a devastating impact on not only those living with it, but those around them.
Salutegenics is walking to raise $1000 for Black Dog Institute, so they can put ground-breaking new mental health treatment, education, and digital services into the hands of the people who need them most.
“The reason why we are also wanting to raise funds is that we want to improve the science behind mental health, and we are hoping that science allows us to move into a more preventative and proactive approach rather than waiting for people to become really unwell. The research can open up avenues for us to think about what are the research or evidence-based strategies that we can use every day on a daily basis so that we can prevent mental illness from developing,” Maria said.
“Salutegenics chose the Black Dog Institute to be their partner charity. The Black Dog Institute is the organisation that the Salutegenics chose to support, in the work that they do with mental health. The Black Dog Institute is one of Australia’s organisations that have a dual function. So not only are they the prime researchers and a research arm, but they also have a clinical and a functional arm where they provide support to the public and to communities.”
Salutegenics fundraising walk encourages a space for open dialogue, education and connection.
“People can talk about how important it is to be well, how do they know that they are well, what are some of the ways that they can increase their wellbeing, like nutrition, exercise and paying attention to your hygiene. These are a number of things that people can do and we hope that as we walk, it’s a walk and talk for mental health,” Maria said.
“The biggest takeaway from the event is that everybody, one small thing can make one big difference. So even if that means walking for 10 minutes a day, calling a friend, drinking one more glass of water than what you normally would, one small behaviour can make one big difference towards your mental health. So we hope that that’s the takeaway.”
With already two completed fundraising walks on October 2 and 8, the community can expect more during the mental health month.
“October is Mental Health Month and for Mental Health Month, there are a number of mental health organisations in Australia that will put their hand up for donations. During this month, Salutegenics will do a number of things to help raise awareness around mental health,” Maria said.
“The first thing that we’re doing is that we’re posting some information and infographics. We’re also reaching out to our communities and connecting in a way that allows people to know that we’re here. We’re letting people know that our preventative training program, our Resilience First Aid program, is preventative and it’s proactive around building good mental health.
“This month, we’re trying to promote a lot of that so that people can become educated, but not just educated, we want them to relearn. We’re noticing that what people currently understand around the concept of mental health still has some old myths and there are some old ideas around what well-being or what mental health might be. Resilience First Aid offers not only education, not only skill building, but also a relearning process. The relearning comes out of new information from neuroscience that uses research data so pairing with the Black Dog Institute, we’re hoping to raise awareness around that. We are also going to promote a couple of dates for people to join us if they would like to walk around the river.”
Support the walk for mental health research: www.onefootforward.org.au/fundraisers/SalutegenicsTeam
