October 11, 2020 – A school in Baranja takes international participation on the occasion of World Mental Health Day.
Each year, on October the 10th, World Federation for Mental Health (WFHM) celebrates World Mental Health Day with the aim of promoting and protecting mental health. This year’s slogan is „Mental health for everyone, everywhere: Greater Investment-Greater Access” emphasising the importance of mental health accessibility to everyone, regardless of their material status or place of residence.
The past few months have brought many challenges and the need for mental health and psychosocial support is expected to increase considerably in the upcoming months and years.
Given the fact that numerous schools have joined the international eTwinning project „Me, Myself & I”, one of the introductory activities has been to mark World Mental Health Day. During the entire week preceding October the 10th, around 200 teachers from 8 European countries (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Turkey) conducted different activities with their students in order to promote the importance of carrying for mental health.
„The fact that mental health is so much more than the simple absence of mental illness is being emphasised through different activities. Mental health is the state of well-being by which people can meet their study potential, deal with different stressors and connect with people and community. Mental health in children and youth contributes to easier schooling, builds resilience to stress and gives self-confidence to seek help individually and is therefore an important factor in child’s performance but also later in life” as has been stated by Marija Jurić, a school psychologist at Drenje primary school, which, alongside Goran Podunavac, a Computer Science teacher from Popovac primary school, has started this praiseworthy project at these times, when our everyday life has changed significantly due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
With this project, students are encouraged to recognize their own emotional states, quality communication with fellow-people, cooperation and seeking for support within their own community. Students learn about mental health through different, interesting activities and topics, applying their current experience. Project activities are being published regularly on the TwinSpace page of the project „Me, Myself & I”.
Many students continue to collaborate with peers from other schools and countries, showing each other how they care for themselves, what they do in their free time, how they relax, how and with whom do they talk about their feelings and problems.
The planned activities will be good not just for the children but also for their teachers and for the rest of the employees at schools. We must never forget that there is no health without mental health.
