JAAM – Calasanctius College

Why as a team did you choose to focus on this challenge?

We chose to do mental health because its something that resinates with all of us. Being a young person in todays world is not easy with social media, school and all the other things going on in the world can cause stress, anxiety and depression in young people. Many young people feel that they can not speak out about it, they think its embarrassing or that people would view them differently. We hope that we will be able to help young people struggling with mental health issues and who feel there is no end in sight.

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What do you know now about the challenge that you didn't know before?

We know now that this challenge has a much deeper meaning then just trying to find a solution to a problem. You need to be passionate about the problem your dealing with. You really have to dive deep in to the problem, why its a problem, how it effects people and what we can do to help.

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What have you learnt about your Hero?

Our heros name is John. He struggles with mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. He has really been struggling recently over the past few months and feels he has gotten to s point where he needs to reach out and ask for help. He doesnt feel comfortable talking to an adult or his friends about the issue because he thinks they wont understand. So he is looking for another way to get help.

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If you could improve one thing for your Hero what would that be?

We hope to improve the life of our hero. Poor mental health can also effect you physically, mentally and emtionally. We hope that we can make even the smallest impact on our heros life. If we can someone view one thing in their life positively that they previously wouldve viewed negatively then that would be a win for us.

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Do you have any ideas for a potential solution? No matter how raw, share them with your Mentors for feedback.

Our idea is to create an app. There are many mental health apps that put you in contact with professionals but we feel that can often be intimadating. We want to create an app that pairs you up with people of a similar age that are also struggling so they can talk to eachother and help eachother through what their experiencing. We feel there is no one better to help then someone experiencing the same issues as you. We also would like to set up groups which would involve a professional to help these young people.

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Ask your Mentor anything …. This is a chance to ask your Mentors a direct question relating to your Big Idea.

We want to know if our mentor thinks that this is a good idea. We are aware that with apps like this it is not always 100 percent safe. We would still monitor the app very closely but there would only be so much that we could do.

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