FOUR bright yellow SUV’s rolled into the Mount Gambier Rail Lands yesterday morning to promote mental health and suicide prevention.
The R U OK? Conversation Convoy, a six-week journey around Australia’s cities and regional towns, seeks to empower Australians to Ask, Listen, Encourage action and Check in.
Around 100 attendees participated in a series of interactive games and activities which promoted local services and reinforced the four steps to start life-changing conversations.
R U OK? chief executive Brendan Maher said the tour would focus on regional and remote towns where mental health and suicide prevention services were not always easily accessible.
“We are trying to mobilise a resource package that is readily available, free and yet remains largely untapped.
“A resource package that can provide a starting point to address the worries that might be keeping someone up at night – this resource package is of course, our eyes, our ears and our mouths.
“These resources are still mostly being held hostage by stigma, fear, and sometimes not knowing where to start.”
R U OK? ambassadors James Van Cooper and Louise Adams performed at yesterday’s event and will again grace the stage at the R U OK? Rocks Cairns concert next month.
“To me it’s a vital message – ‘how are you, are you doing okay’ is a question we ask people everyday and we can build on that and make sure friends really are doing okay,” Ms Adams said.
“It’s an important first step and I look at it as the first aid of mental health.”
Mr Van Cooper said his own life-changing conversation had inspired him to become an ambassador for the R U OK? initiative.
“A couple of years ago I was in a tough place and I believe in this program because it was one conversation with a friend that changed my life,”
“My friend told me ‘if you stay on this path you will die’ and his honesty and willingness to talk to me about my situation turned my life around.”
The Conversation Convoy will wrap up in Cairns on R U OK? Day on September 14.
