I’ve worked in children-adjacent industries for a few years now, so I’m no stranger to the regular first-aid training that you can get at various places.
However, recently, I saw through a post online that the Te Tari Mātāwaka (Ministry for Ethnic Communities) was funding a series of Mental Health First Aid courses through Hato Hone, St John.
I’ve been super intrigued for a while and jumped at the chance to give it a go.
It was amazing!
Taught in the same style as the Medical First-Aid courses, the instructor, Lyndal, was gentle and compassionate and had the right amount of vulnerability to make this course flow with sensitivity and provide us with the content we needed to get through.
In the ice-breaker activity, we learnt about each other, and the other course participants were mostly slightly older women from various ethnic and migrant communities. As a tauiwi person who has struggled with my dual identities, it was chilling to see so many leaders in various ethnic communities take on the challenge of championing mental health initiatives.
I highly recommend these courses if you haven’t considered or even heard of them. Considering mental health as equal in importance to physical health is vital to our societal cohesiveness, especially in the aftermath of the pandemic and the drastic effects of lockdowns and constant fear of the unknown.
I’m happy to connect on Bluesky if you want to kōrero more about my experience. Or you can go old school and email me!
Vivian Chandra 