SLUs bring mental health awareness to campus

Junior Kristen Krak and sophomores Margot Reed and Zoe Morris put on “Anthology of Survival” for their SLU house projects.

Reed describes the event as “a production produced and written by students, for the students.”

“It focuses on breaking the stigma of mental health in a way to get the word out about how it affects people in this community,” said Reed, a member of the House of Peace and Justice.

“The monologues written were submitted anonymously and randomly assigned to those who auditioned to perform.”

Morris, a member of the Women’s House, said recent graduates Megan Cook and Jordan Ahmed, who were members of the Active Minds group, first started “Anthology of Survival.”

Krak, a member of the Citizens of the World house, added that this is the third year of the project.

This year’s performance ran for about an hour and featured a variety of monologues.

Booklets from the performance could be purchased with a donation to Helpline.

As for planning the project, Krak said it was nice to have the work split up between three people. Krak said planning for the event started at the beginning of the semester, and she has been thrilled with the amount of participation from students.

“It’s been really encouraging to see people come out of seemingly nowhere to help with this project,” Krak said.

“A lot of the people in it are friends of ours, or housemates, but there are a few who just heard about it and were interested in helping, which is really awesome.”

Morris said she hopes this project will start a discussion about mental health.

“I also hope that the people who submitted stories and the students reading the stories feel that they gain something for the experience, be that, relief, understanding, or catharsis,” she said.

Both Krak and Reed said they want to raise awareness of mental health issues in the OWU community.

“Just being mindful of your own mental illness and others’ is helpful in creating a more welcoming environment for those struggling with it,” Reed said.

“No one should ever feel bad or wrong for something they can’t control.”