Funding mental health skills for life

FRIENDS of India Network’s 2022 charity cricket match and black-tie gala dinner have been successful in raising funds for the Ballarat and District Suicide Prevention Network.

The FIN community and their guests generated $75,000 this year which will benefit Ballarat Youth Services-led mental health program Live4Life, expected to reach 20,000 young people in schools over five years.

BDSPN chair Des Hudson was presented with FIN’s cheque on Monday at Town Hall and said their aim with Live4Life is to create generational change.

“Live4Life adolescent and teen programs will be respectively delivered to year 8 and year 10 students over a series of three and five sessions, at schools across Ballarat,” he said.

“The training model is designed to give them an understanding of mental health, positive and negative, and the intervention strategies available, that they can use on their lifelong journey, as a friend and as a work colleague.

“The project will help them gain the confidence to ask others if they are okay.”

FIN’s donation will fund the training of 30 hands-on facilitators who will deliver the mental health program.

Network president Sanjay Sharma said members of the group are pleased their support will boost the health and wellbeing of the next generation.

“It’s all about putting something back into the community that’s worthwhile, and helping young people to learn some resilience strategies,” he said.

From 2023, half of the city’s local schools will be part of the program, before the rest join in the following year.

Live4Life has already been rolled out in the Macedon Ranges, Surf Coast, Glenelg, and Moyne shires, but the Ballarat program is set to be the largest so far.