ZETA Movement — Youth for Mental Health Awareness Switzerland
ZETA Movement was founded because there is still high stigmatization around mental health in Switzerland — especially, the younger generation is affected. Several Global Changemakers and other activists share the passion for mental health topics and the idea to establish an association grew. As an association created by young people for young people, we see ourselves as a movement to break the cycle of stigmatization and the silence around mental health issues in Switzerland. Therefore, we use the storytelling approach. Our project is based on the three pillars of information sharing, mental health promotion and community building.
At the moment, we are working hard on our core idea, the ZETA Movement Ambassador Programme. The Ambassadors are young people in the late stage of their recovery who share their personal experiences with their mental health issues in schools and other youth-related organizations. The first round of the “Ambassador Call”, which has just ended, was a big success. We are convinced to make a positive and sustainable impact with our motivated Ambassadors in Switzerland. In order to be well prepared for their tasks and to be ready to share their experiences, all Ambassadors must attend a workshop with a professional psychologist to learn about the best practices to speak about mental health issues. While implementing the programme, the board realized that it is important that every Ambassador will be accompanied by a professional for his or her visits at schools. Fortunately, we have already found capable and supportive psychologists and psychiatrists — so nothing can stop us from spreading our message and advancing the movement of change!
Furthermore, over the past couple of months we produced several expert videos which you can watch on our social media channels or on the website. ZETA Movement is being operated multilingual to best represent Switzerland’s language regions and in English. Everyone can thus watch our informative and helpful videos! If you want to get in touch with ZETA Movement there is a webinar taking place on the 20th October 2020 at 6pm (Swiss time). The webinar is part of the Berne Action Days for Mental Health and we are talking together with Pro Juventute (a Swiss organization specialized in children, teens and young adults) about their national helpline and their peer chat. Even though the zoom meeting is in German you can ask questions in English, French or Italian.
We are proud that our Movement has already made a difference. For example: We worked together on a project with the University of Berne! Especially the storytelling approach and the social media activities help us to reach the younger people. We want to be the last generation suffering from the stigma of mental health and are convinced that speaking about taboos is the most effective way to do so.
Global Changemakers has an unshakeable mission of supporting youth to create positive change in their communities. A global pioneer in supporting youth-led development, they have trained youth from over 180 countries and provided grants to over 360 youth-led projects, which have had a combined impact on over 6,2 million people. www.global-changemakers.net
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