The Penticton Rotary club and School District 67 are embarking on a two-year program to address the issues surrounding mental wellness with youth in the area.
The project is bringing comedian and speaker Kevin Breel to the Cleland Theatre on Feb.17 to deliver his TED Talk Confessions of a Depressed Comic.
Breel never set out to speak on mental health, but it was a personal struggle his skills allowed him to share.
“I never had any intention of being someone who would get on stage and do anything other than make jokes,” Breel said in an email interview. “But I had this story of being someone who had struggled with depression — and at one point had even been suicidal — and I decided to share that at a TEDx event. That talk became something a lot of people seemed to relate to and I kind of just stumbled in to this role as an ‘activist,’” said Breel.
He is able to help others by sharing his own experience and relating to what those with mental health issues may be going through.
“The idea that everyday kids are committing suicide because they just feel stuck in that place of darkness is heart breaking for me. I wrote a suicide note. I get it. But I also know that depression tells you a bunch of lies and if you believe those lies, it can get really scary really fast. So I kind of just want to be a reminder that things do get better and that this stuff is normal,” Breel said.
Last year, at the first ever Ideafest for youth in Victoria, students were asked to identify the major issues that were affecting youth in the area.
“To our surprise, 58 per cent of the students identified mental wellness as a key issue,” Rotarian Brian Hughes said.
That’s in contrast to 32 per cent who said affordable recreation was an issue.
Hughes, along with fellow Rotarian Milton Orris, is heading the project in the area.
The Rotary Club is also putting forward other mental wellness support for students in the form of peer mentorship programs and working with teachers in the area as well.
In the last two years Penticton has lost four youth to suicide.
The Penticton Rotary Club has partnered with Sandra Richardson, vice principal of Princess Margaret Secondary School, as well. Breel will be coming to the school early on in the day of his performance to speak to the students. The students will then return to their classes and spend a half hour talking about mental wellness with their teachers.
Hughes said there are a number of reasons youth don’t seek help if they feel they have mental health issues, ranging from being afraid to let their parents know they are suffering, to not knowing where to go and being afraid someone might see them reaching out for help.
“It is frightening. The suicide numbers, the attempted suicide, the number of kids thinking about suicide, it keeps you awake nights,” Hughes said.
For more information call Brian Hughes at 250-770-1200.
-With files from Steve Kidd/Western News