Walk the Talk…

Two years ago I met the most wonderful woman named Madeline. She is a wellness coach who works with passion and her whole heart for Successful Families Successful kids for the Northern Lights School District and was very interested in a collaboration with me after she saw the State of Mind Exhibit. Madeline asked, how can we have this awareness at our schools? Therefore, we had a meeting of the minds and came up with a year long plan to visit 6 different schools to listen and talk with diverse age groups about Mental Health. Our objective was to encourage learning about the stigma surrounding mental health and how it prevents issues from being discussed and how it prevents those who are impacted from seeking the help they need. We talked about hope and recovery and created a story telling exhibit called ‘Walk the Talk’. We asked the children and young adults their thoughts about how they felt and asked them to write them down on a card and I photographed them. As a Society, we still struggle with Stigma and we wanted to create a safe place for the kids to open up and explore their feelings about how they felt and they did this by writing messages on card stock. As the word got out in the community that this project was taking place, more people wanted to participate. The whole community got involved and stood together with strength and open hearts, united against the stigma of Mental Health. There was over 350 participants and the exhibit drew everyone in. I added stories and photos I had taken of people who have shared their lived experiences with me and I surrounded the stories with the messages everyone wrote. There was such pride felt by the community, parents, teachers and my favourite, was the kids and how they responded to seeing themselves part of a project that celebrated hope.

The Walk the Talk project was funded by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts by a grant I applied for called Indigenous Artist Individual project. As well as Successful Families Successful kids and the Town of Lac La Biche.