A Year in Mental Health Journalism (@CarterFellows) – #WorldMentalHealthDay

Reflecting on the year I spent focusing on mental health journalism and all that was published under it.

A month ago, I completed my Rosalynn Carter Fellowship in Mental Health Journalism. It’s a fellowship program that was started by the Former First Lady of The United States Mrs. Rosalynn Carter about 20 years ago. It’s aimed to provide journalists with resources and opportunities to accurately and holistically report on mental health in their countries and their regions.

The fellowship project was for Sail Magazine to create a series of mental health articles focused on university students in specific. At the time we started the project, I had recruited two of the magazine’s writers to be the main writers for this project aside from myself. The assigned writers were Alia AlHazami and Omar Al Owais. We sat and discussed topics and themes, and we had many feedback rounds from the advisory board of the fellowship that helped us shape the project in the most realistic way. We chose topics like social perceptions, academic pressures, reasons, triggers, and so much more.

When the planned articles started to get published in April this year, we got outpouring support from our readers and our writers, all relating to the articles and some wanting to contribute to it with their reflections or stories. Some expanded on academic pressures, reflected on social expectations, related mental health with the Harry Potter series, took an analytical approach on mental health as a field, and one shared the detailed story of her OCD struggles.

Here is the list of the originally planned articles:

– How Bad is the Mental Health State of the University Students? And Why Did It Get This Bad? – written by me

– 5 Ways University Students Can Get Help for Mental Health Problems – written by Alia AlHazami, Omar Al Owais, and myself.

– The Top 3 Mental Health Problems Among University Students – written by me

– Do People Hide Their Mental Illnesses To Get Married? written by Alia AlHazami and Omar Al Owais

– How Often Do Parents Assume Their Teenagers’ Mental Health Problems Are Just A Peer Pressure Phase – written by Alia AlHazami

– Academic Anxiety Is Likely Why You’re Not Doing So Well In Your Studies – written by Omar Al Owais

– Mental Health: A Gendered Perspective – written by Alia AlHazami

– Don’t Feel Guilty for Your Education – written by Omar Al Owais

– 5 Measures Universities Can Take to Better Manage their Students’ Mental Health – written by me

Here is the list of all the additional articles we published during the campaign we did in April/May 2018:

– Is Our Fear Of Stigma Worth Ignoring The Mental Health Of Our Loved Ones? – written by Sarah AlKaabi

– Can Students’ Stress Cross Into The Realm Of Mental Illness? – written by Hessa AlEassa

– The Unending Quest to Decode Mental Health – written by Alia Galadari

– The Vicious Cycle of Mental Health – written by Abdulla Malek

– An Insider Story of Mental Health First Aid – written by Alia Galadari

– My Life Struggle Story with My OCD Diagnosis – written by Maisoon Basry

– Dubai Makes Mental Health More Visible Through Establishing A Mental Health Strategy – written by Alia Galadari

– What Harry Potter Had to Tell Us About Mental Health – written by Abdelaziz AlMulla

And here is the link for all our ongoing mental health articles:  Mental Health Articles

It might have been one year of focused fellowship in mental health journalism, but I know it’s just the start of better understanding, reflecting, and talking about mental health problems, to eradicate its shame and normalize it enough so people can talk about their mental health problems without fear of judgment, and actively look for help without delay and denial. I’m hopeful. How about you?