Monday, April 06, 2009

Youth Wings Unite to Launch YMHS

The main political youth wings in the North of Ireland have united to campaign and lobby for an effective youth mental health strategy (YMHS).

Young political activists have been working together in the past months, alongside St Columbs Park Derry, to bring the broad issue of mental health to the fore, particularly targeting suicide prevention and drug and alcohol awareness.

The group comprising youth from Sinn Féin, SDLP, Green Party, Alliance, UUP and DUP launched their campaign for a youth mental health strategy at Belfast City Hall today (Monday 6 April).


Spokesperson for the youth wings, Karly Greene said,

“The young wings have been working closely together over the past number of months identifying the key issues of mental health, and drawing up a plan on how we can best tackle these issues from a youth perspective, ensuring it is relevant and effective.”

“We have written to every Assembly member, and are arranging a meeting with the Health Committee, we have engaged with a number of voluntary and community groups who are at the coalface in dealing with mental health.We are also arranging for our members to undertake the ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) programme, and are producing a short film, that will be launched at a youth forum on mental health. The youth forum aims to bring young people from all communities together, spark debate and formulate ideas on how to deal with this common issue.”
“Mental Health affects everyone regardless of age, race, sex and religion, and it is a progressive step forward that the young political activists are demonstrating unity and leadership to other young people on such an important issue.”

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

greens? alliance? methinks you're forgetting Ogra Fianna Fail.

Ógra Shinn Féin said...

Ógra Fianna Fáil have been invited constantly to engage in this particular initiative, been never sent anyone, and have dropped of the radar in terms of Magee and QUB after all the pomp and hype last year.

Anonymous said...

Who??

Sinn Féin was the onaly ACTUAL all-Ireland party present.

Anonymous said...

thats not very nice of Ógra, not allowing a certain young gentleman from Magee to pretend he speaks for a FF party structure at these meetings, another complaint to University of Ulster from his good self i fear.

As for QUB, me thinks some members can't decide if its the SDLP or FF they're in - hedging your bets, a solid career move.