Mosaic pieces together mental health issues

Students at Gort Community School this week unveiled a special project aimed at opening a dialogue about mental health among young people.

Leaving Cert Applied students recently designed and completed a mosaic that is now hung in the assembly area of the school for all to be inspired by. Its aim is to create awareness of the importance of looking after one’s mental health.

“For our social education we thought it would be a good idea to base our task on mental health issues because they are very important in society nowadays. We wanted to raise awareness in the school about it and highlight how important it is to look after our mental health,” explained Darren Egan, LCA2 student.

The young Kiltartan man worked on the project with the rest of his class: Lisa Hall, Keith Collins, David Nilton, Rafael Alemeda and Mark Madden.

Carmel Neylon is LCA2 co-ordinator in the school.

“The mosaic aims to trigger discussions and tackle and reduce the issue of stigma associated with mental health, by encouraging students and the school community generally to talk openly about their emotions and mental health difficulties. The stigma surrounding mental ill health is a barrier to improved mental health. A young person may try to hide depression and related mood disorders and may not get help because of a fear of how he or she will be treated by family, friends, fellow students and the wider community,” she explained.

“The face in the mosaic has a dark and a bright side prompting us to remember that when one is in a dark place, depressed or anxious, there is hope of brighter times ahead if one asks for, and is open to help from family, friends, teachers or support agencies. The letters MH refer to mental health but if you look closely, you can see the students cleverly make them look like people to represent everybody that struggles with mental health issues. The words ‘head up, heart open’ speak for themselves,” she said.

The LCA students worked on the mosaic under the guidance of Gerry Ruane, mosaic artist from Tubber, and the project was funded by NAPD, the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals and Gort Community School Parents Association.

“We have been probably working on this for about two months on and off now. We had a double social education class each Tuesday and Gerry would come in for that period and we would work away on it,” Darren explained.

While the six students involved in this project have never engaged in mosaic art before, this is not the first time the school has developed large-scale wall art promoting human rights issues.

“We have done many human rights projects. Last year students here did a stained glass on diversity and inclusion and before that we did HIV awareness. As a class we had never done mosaic before but a few years back another class did a mosaic on the five major world religions to celebrate religious tolerance,” Darren concluded.

According to Ms Neylon, the school actively encourages creativity in raising awareness of social issues.

“The school has been active in offering students the freedom to participate in creative projects and endeavors over the years. These projects and actions have often reached beyond the scope of the classroom, pulling in community, national and even international involvement,” Ms Neylon explained.

“Around the school there is much evidence of visual expressions of awareness-creating projects done over the past few years. This year in particular they focused on mental health.

“As mental health problems are increasing, it is now more important than ever for people, particularly young people, to be introduced to the concept of positive mental health. We need to help our young to respond in appropriate ways to emerging mental health difficulties in their lives,” she said.

“Mental health is a complex subject, it’s hard to define and difficult to grasp all of its different aspects. Issues such as low self-esteem, bullying, relationship difficulties, family conflict, alcohol and drug abuse can have devastating effects on one’s mental health,” Ms Neylon added.

The LCA2 group also organised workshops for all classes in the school on various mental health issues, such as depression and suicide, bullying, alcohol and drug abuse. These were facilitated by Aware, Barnardos and Aids West and the Samaritans.