My passion for mental health stems for my own lived experiences as a young person coming from an ethnic minority background and living with disabilities. Having been born and brought up in West Sussex, all the mental health support I have accessed has been local and includes West Sussex Mind. In March 2021, I founded a local youth mental health charity, called Championing Youth Minds, for young people to help other young people care for their mental well-being daily.
Joining the trustee board has meant that I am able to bring my own diverse lived experience as a young person and all that I have learned through my work with other young people. I deeply appreciate and value how mental health is so varied and individual to each and every one of us and that is why we need our board to represent this.
Coming from a South Asian background means that I am able to bring my experience of navigating mental health in a community where it is heavily stigmatised due to religion and culture. Furthermore, as a young person living with disabilities, especially those that are non-visible, I can understand the lack of awareness within society about the strong connection between how our physical health impacts our mental health and vice-versa.
I am particularly passionate about preventative mental health support, as I believe that if young people could be taught about mental health from a young age, they would be equipped with tools to care for their mental well-being and also be aware about how to accessing support when needed.