Mental Health Awareness Week – Celebrating health and wellbeing 

Mental Health Awareness Week – celebrating health and wellbeing projects from our London Faith & Belief Community Awards

During the coronavirus pandemic, mental health wellbeing is now more important than ever. Taking care of your mind and body is vital to keeping safe and motivated, and many Faith and Belief groups and projects are committed to ensuring all members within their communities have the capability to do so.  

We at the Faith and Belief Forum believe it is more important than ever to share the stories of how faith groups are supporting their local communities, both in response to COVID-19, and their work in general. 

For the past four years, we have had the pleasure of hosting the London Faith & Belief Community Awards. This allows us to shine a spotlight on these amazing groups, raising their profile and voice, and ensuring they can continue to work hard for their communities.  

One such example of this is The Delicate Mind, a London Faith & Belief Community Award winner from 2018. The Delicate Mind is based in Tower Hamlets and works with faith leaders, teachers and mental health experts to combat the stigma around mental health. They have a particular focus, but not exclusively, on the South Asian community, and work within schools, prisons, youth clubs and with other third-sector organisations. By exploring and unpacking media misrepresentation, class, race and gender, The Delicate Mind educates practitioners on how these affect the mental health of minority communities. 

The organisation runs interfaith workshops, hold lectures and facilitates training sessions, to encourage discussions and generate awareness of mental health services available to minority groups, creating constructive conversations and promoting community cohesion. Receiving a London Faith & Belief Community Award allowed them to extend their offer of trainings across East London. 

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic making their job a little more difficult, The Delicate Mind continues to remain active, moving many of their services online, such as hosting webinars and workshops on Zoom. To find out how to take part and for more information on The Delicate Mind, please visit their website, Facebook and Instagram pages.  

This group is a prime example of successfully promoting health & wellbeing, a category within the London Faith & Belief Community Awards. This award celebrates groups and projects to create services and conversations for the health and wellbeing, both physical and mental, of Londoners. They focus on reducing social isolation, promoting healthy lifestyle choices and improving the quality of life of vulnerable people from across the city. With the COVID-19 lockdown changing how we communicate with others and placing restrictions on what we can do, maintaining an active and healthy mind and body is especially difficult, more so than usual. 

For more information on the awards and nomination criteria, please visit our Awards page or contact us at jessica@faithbeliefforum.org. 

By Nick McDonald