Hume World Mental Health Expo

On the 9th of October, several students who have consistently demonstrated our college values were given the opportunity to attend the Hume World Mental Health Expo to discover community initiatives and support groups designed to help with mental health and wellbeing.  Additionally, students were lucky enough to hear from Guy Sebastian who discussed his own experience with mental health. Read on to find out what some of the attendees thought about the excursion.  

Emily Chapman, Year 11.

A group of year 10 and 11 students were given the experience of going to Broadmeadows Town Hall for World Mental Health Day to learn and witness people’s stories. Meeting Guy was an amazing experience and we listened to other speakers discuss their experiences with mental health.  I’m so thankful for Mr Liber for giving me this experience, as well as Miss Bullen and Miss Dass. Going around and learning about all the different support groups it made me feel that if I needed help, I could get it. Watching Guy Sebastian talk about his experiences and program was very interesting and he also spoke about why he created his foundation. Overall, it was honestly such an amazing day and I’m so grateful I got to experience this.

Lisa Sharma, Year 10

On the 9th of October, several students were chosen to participate in the Mental Health Expo, which was supported by the Sebastian Foundation. Throughout the day, we visited numerous stalls which educated and explained the importance of reaching out and seeking support for your mental health. The highlight of the day included a keynote speech and presentation from Guy Sebastian where he shared some of his personal stories and provided his opinions and views on common issues faced amongst youth.  

A day filled with so much fun and lots of engagement!

Kiara Ein-Alshaiba, Year 10  

The Mental Health Expo Day was a great opportunity to learn and understand the different types of support systems we have within the Hume Council. Mental health and clinical help is available, but there are also programs and activities that provide support for things which impact our minds, like school, friends and jobs. We took away a lot from the different pop-ups, activities and guest speakers throughout the day. 

We all very much enjoyed the interactive activities like a photobooth, a gym pulley machine challenge, crosswords and of course the free goodies we got to take. (e.g. popcorn, phone wallets, cotton candy, pens, stickers etc.) 

We had an activity where we made a pledge to ourselves, either someone we want to be in the future or something we learnt to take with us from the day. A couple of examples were, surround yourself with positivity and be the light because sometimes people need that around them or for yourself. 

There was this amazing superpower wall, you put a sticky note up stating what you or others think your superpower is or what we love about life/our traits. 

Some more things we took away are: 

• understand it’s okay to not be okay 
• being physically okay to make yourself mentally okay 
• filling up your own cup before filling up others 
• we can’t always change what happens but we can change what happens within us

Guest Speakers

Sharanjit (from Batyr)

We learnt about her journey with racism, she discussed her ethnicity, skin tone, food, long hair and her name which nobody could pronounce. Due to the bullying she suffered she became resentful of her name, hair, lunches and culture and would change herself to try and fit in. She felt sick and unsafe.  She began to feel physical pain on top of the mental pain, like pain in her jaw, not sleeping and not eating properly. She then reached out for help when her friends and sister noticed her mood, she saw a therapist and now has strategies to help cope. Two main things we took away from Sharanjit’s story is “recovery is not linear” and we go through life “one page at a time”. 

Guy Sebastian 

Guy Sebastian spoke about his struggle with mental health when he started his career. He was told he had the voice but didn’t have the looks. He was rejected by labels because of his look but he could not control the way he was born and he didn’t give up. He spoke on how this generation compares itself to each other and we hold ourselves to such low standards. He also spoke about how social media has such a big impact on everyone lives and how he is a regular person who still wants the same things he did before he was a celebrity but some family and friends treated him differently. 

His main point of focus was finding your community, the people who love you and have proven to be for you, not against you.  He said that people who love and care about you should have the most input in your life - if they say something or give advice take them seriously because they care and love you. Another main point of Guy’s story was that every day is a new day with fresh thoughts and you need to look inwards rather than let others decide who you are. 

A very exciting thing was Guy answered a question that one of our own CSC students wrote. 

What makes you smile the most and what scares you the most? 

The thing that makes him smile the most are his kids - 11- and 9-year-old, Hudson and Archie.  It makes him smile when they sing a lot or have fits of laughter when fighting. 

The thing that scares him most is saying something stupid and getting cancelled.  He really hates spiders. As a parent, he worries how his kids will grow up and the world they’ll grow up in, but he also has a lot of hope that there are good things in the future generation.