GROUPS across Bromsgrove will be raising awareness of World Mental Health Day tomorrow and Sunday when they take part in socially distanced community litter-picks across the district.
As well as cleaning up their local area, volunteers in groups of six will also be leaving hand-written kindness messages for others to see to brighten their day or to take them away.
Research shows volunteering has a positive effect on mental health and can help with managing depression, enhancing life satisfaction and wellbeing.
It can be just as valuable to the volunteer as well as those benefiting from the help.
Partners involved in The Great Bromsgrove Litter Pick project include Community Safety, SWP, Keep Bromsgrove Beautiful, Grace Church, Police Cadets, Bromsgrove District Council and parish councils.
People can email [email protected] for more information and to request equipment to carry out litter-picks in their areas.
Bromsgrove’s children promote kindness and highlight mental health
Young people across Bromsgove District have also been penning poems and creating pictures to highlight mental health.
The harsh reality of mental health
(Poem by a police cadet)
The endless nights are hard to fight
but everyone knows its fight or flight.
everyone asks are you okay and all you can say is
“I promise I’m alright”
But little do they know how hard it is to fight when all you want
is the pain you feel to be gone out of your life.
stuck inside 4 plain walls is nothing compared to being sucked into your mind.
every day I hide the tears but in reality I’m broken inside.
Everyone says “I care” or “it’ll go away”
but like the locks and chains on our doors these dark thoughts will never fade.
I can fake it till I make it
but these endless nights;
locked inside remind me that I can only fake it till I break.
I put a smile on my face to show the demons that I will win this race.
but like these endless nights and days stuck inside,
I know I can only try to survive.
I remind myself that it is a battle of my life
and if I make it out alive,
I can open the door to the outside.
Without the laughter and the smiles of those close to me
I feel myself drowning in the loneliness
and I fear the demons would start to win.
The daily reminder of the restrictions I live through
remind me of the pain that I cannot escape.
I tell myself “I will make it”
but as far as I know
I need to break myself before I can make it out alive.
the issues of the disease are restricting my lungs,
just like the pain that people feel not seeing loved ones.
The day I am let outside
the day that I see them smile
and the day I can hear them laugh
is the day I want to not just survive
but I want to feel alive.
