Advocacy & Awareness
How to Build Bridges Between Overlooked Students and Administrators
Take a look at college students, like really take a look at the students on your campus. College students, especially first-generation college students, are scared, nervous, and quite frankly lost when they arrive at college. They’re far away from home with no support system. The responsibility for providing support now falls on the shoulders of…
Your Voice is Your Power: Why We Are Supporting BIPOC Mental Health During Suicide Prevention Month
Active Minds is calling on young adults across the nation to advocate for change and use their voices to establish a campus culture of caring and support for BIPOC students. Here are our recommendations of ways you can begin to make change, starting today. We launched our Your Voice Is Your Power Campaign to support…
Calling All Student Mental Health Advocates
For years, mental health has been a growing issue among students. Even before the pandemic, research showed a rise in mental health issues among students over the past decade. And among BIPOC students this increase was even more pronounced. Experts and research predict that mental health challenges will continue to rise this fall, and will…
Pursuing a Career in Mental Health When You’re Not Fully “Healed”
I barely remember attending my masters graduation. I’d been in a heartbroken haze for months, somehow finishing my thesis between breakdowns. When I look back on photos from that day, I’m sporting a giant, toothy grin that would fool anyone as being authentic – but I remember feeling empty. Today, when I see smiles on…
What Our Secrets Can Tell Us
PostSecret is a community art project I started on a whim over a decade ago. I printed up a few thousand postcards, handed them out on the streets of Washington, DC, invited people to write down a secret they had never told anyone before, decorate the card, and then mail it to my home in…
BIPOC Mental Health Webinar Recap
Terms you might be unfamiliar with: BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color The coronavirus pandemic isn’t affecting all students equally, and historically, education hasn’t helped all students in the same ways. BIPOC students are at higher risk for both mental and physical health problems, and as schools across the nation respond to…
Our Time to Listen
I’ve always been surrounded by strong women. In fact, I spent the first few years of my life with my grandmother in India while my parents settled down in the United States. My grandmother is most unbreakable in my eyes. Despite dropping out of school early and marrying my grandfather as a teenager, she sacrificed…
Active Minds BIPOC Speakers Share Their Lived Experiences
Everyone experiences mental health differently. Sometimes, our differences are small, forgettable even. But in others, they span cultures, languages, and histories. July is BIPOC Mental Health Month, and we’re taking an extra moment to listen, to reflect, and to share the stories of individuals who are underrepresented and oppressed. Changing the narrative around mental health…
Mental Health is for Everyone: No Asterisk
When I joined my Active Minds chapter during my first year of college, I was one of the few people of color on our leadership team despite the racial and ethnic diversity present at my university. I joined to decrease stigma for others. Although I strongly believed this, I still held a lot of stigma…
How to Be an Ally During Pride Month
It’s Pride Month, which for some means celebrating with rainbow cakes and free-flying flags, but for others means facing new versions of daily fears. For people still on their “coming out journey,” being told to wear your colors as brightly as possible can feel like asking a peacock to spread its feathers in a cramped…
Active Minds is the nation's premier nonprofit organization supporting mental health awareness and education for students.
