Green Ribbon Campaign

Green Ribbon Campaign Launch 600x400 (1)

Launching the annual Green Ribbon Campaign were Sorcha Lowry from See Change, the National Stigma Reduction Partnership along with ambassador’s with experience of mental health problems, Laura Louise Condell and Una Kavanagh. Picture: Finbarr O’Rourke

Get talking about mental health for See Change’s Green Ribbon Campaign throughout the month of May.

The social movement aims to bring discussion of mental health out into the open, and with the help of 90 partner organisations, 50 campaign ambassadors with personal experience of mental health issues and hundreds of volunteers, See Change hopes to start a national conversation about mental health.

See Change is the National Stigma Reduction Partnership, whose aim is to stamp out the stigma around mental health issues. The World Health Organisation’s figures state that one in four people experience some problem around mental health – that is greater than the populations of Clare, Galway, Cork, Limerick and Waterford combined. Yet according to See Change, more than half of the population would not want others to know about their mental health problems.

Director of See Change, John Saunders says “You don’t have to be an expert to start talking about mental health, and wearing the Green Ribbon is a simple way of standing up to the silence that breeds stigma. It is inspiring to see more than 50 ambassadors coming forward to openly talk about their own experiences of mental health problems, to show that anyone can go through a tough time and recovery is possible.”

You can pick up your free Green Ribbon throughout May at Irish Rail stations, Citizens Information Centres and MABS offices. There are a number of other ways to get involved, too. You can download the supporter’s pack from http://greenribbon.ie/show-your-support.php, simply tweet using #GreenRibbonIRL, or add a green ribbon to your Facebook profile picture using this link: http://on.fb.me/1qPw9qB.

You can find out about Green Ribbon events happening around the country at http://greenribbon.ie/news-and-events.

By Aimée Mac Leod