‘Stop the Stigma’: SAP launches mental health awareness week

By Nourhan Hammam @HammamNourhan
and Merna El Tayee @myrnaaataye3

The Sociology, Anthropology and Psychology Association (SAP) last week launched its mental health awareness campaign called “Stop the Stigma”.

Dina Mossad, SAP’s president and a psychology senior,  said the campaign’s theme was “Faces of Humanity”; the campaign is a nod to the International Mental Health Awareness Month.

SAP was founded earlier this year and this is their first event.

“To highlight this theme, every day we took instant Polaroid pictures of people and hung them on a tree we designed. This tree is a symbol of mental health,” said Mossad.

The week-long campaign included a number of activities to engage students. One of the activities involved spinning a wheel that was divided into three sections that corresponded to the three majors comprising the association.

Students were invited to answer questions from each section and those who answered five consecutive questions correctly won a jar of M&M’s chocolate.

“We, also, had a session of therapeutic art. We had mandalas and colors, and people would come and color them [mandalas]. This is supposed to be a stress reliever,” added Mossad.

“[The main goals the association wishes to reach by the end of the campaign are to] let the people know that the association exists and that we are a strong entity, and to show that AUC is taking a stand against mental illness stigma,” said Youssra Hamza, humans relations head in SAP.

Anthropology professor Mohamed Tabishat says the association could be quite productive, simply because it highlights the social sciences that could be developed and adapted to be relevant to everyday life.

“This requires us to start experimenting and putting the concepts, ideas and methods that are used in social sciences. This might be the start” he added.