Tuesday 02-06-2020 - 18:20

Since it was mental health awareness week and due to COVID-19, we knew a lot of students were and still are struggling. A poll on our social media highlighted that 97% of our members feel that mental health isn't taken seriously in British Asian culture. BAS decided to get involved to raise awareness as mental health isn't always openly discussed within British Asian culture or our families 🙌🏽

Our members and social media followers were able to anonymously submit their thoughts, viewpoints and experiences on mental health within our culture. Also, they shared tips on how they have coped with mental health and how it has affected their past. Essentially, anything was able to be submitted even if it was a story that would make people laugh.

Throughout the week, we anonymously posted people's submission with the option for our members to interact by giving them the option to give their opion on the matter. We found that people have struggled with mental health due a variety of reasons, such as ; being forced or pressured into a degree they didn't want to do, always told what to wear and how they should act with different people, coming to terms with sexuality, told they should always be happy because they're 'young'

The submissions showed that people within our culture hide their feelings and mental health away from their families due to the stigma that has been around for generations. However, there was also a small increase in parents being more accepting about mental health within our culture. This was our main aim to raise awareness through our platform to those in British Asian Culture to show that having mental health problems is okay and shouldn't be hidden away, despite the mindset from past generations

We wanted to thank to everybody who got invovled by submitting their experiences and thoughts, or even supported us in our mental health awareness week. Unfortunately, we did not get to post them throughout the week but we hope that we've helped shed light to problems faced by many and hope our generation sets a better example going forward within British Asian Culture. We also hope going forward we can raise awareness about other issues and how they are perceived in our culture