KIDS RIGHTS WEBINAR Questions

Would you like to share your individual experiences with respect to Mental Health issue?
• So just to give you some background, I am an open water, long distance swimmer,
which means that I train and swim competitively in the ocean. It’s a sport that can
leave you feeling quite vulnerable, so it’s important to be focused when you’re in the
water. This can be mentally quite draining because you must be focused on your
breathing, your stroke and your environment all the time and distraction could mean
that you lose your rhythm and even put yourself in danger if you don’t remain focused
on your surroundings.
• Staying focused can be very difficult, especially when there is a lot going on in your
head. And when I was 12 years old, there was a whole lot going on in my head a lot
of the time.It started to become a constant distraction and I knew that I wasn’t going
to be able to just swim it away.
• It occurred to me that I simply couldn’t spend endless hours in the water just to end
up with a good swimming technique – I needed to find a bigger purpose.
• At first I started swimming for money to help those in need to buy material necessities.
In South Africa there is a lot of poverty and I found this emotionally challenging.
• But it was impossible to keep it up and I soon realised that I was also being
idealistic and even if I could swim 24/7, I would still not be able to raise enough
money for all the needs I wanted to fill.
• This project was like a band-aid for my state of mind at the time it made me feel better
for a while but things became difficult over the next few years. I still needed to do
something more.
• By this time I was an even more confused young adolescent and I was about to start
high school.
• It was also a time that, as a family, we experienced a very strained relationship at
home. I didn’t feel comfortable reaching out for adult support at my school and I didn’t
think that my peers would be able to understand what I was experiencing and even
care really – it’s not really something you do when you’re 13 I guess.
• The first 2 months of high school was really tough and I could see that I wasn’t the
only one struggling but yet no-one wanted to speak about it. I realised that I was
becoming a part of the problem instead of a part of the solution.
• In the meantime, I had joined a youth development organisation and a part of the
program was to develop and run a project. I decided to create a 12-hour Swimathon,
with my group, where I would use the physical struggle of endurance swimming to give
insight into the perpetual struggle of mental health wellness. I also wanted to create
awareness around stigma and how it had so many negative consequences.
• This was a significant turning point for me and my organisation but it took a personal
journey of mental health challenges to realise that I needed to be the change that I
wanted to see. What I did experience along the way though was that difficult issues
didn’t just dissapear but I learnt how to cope better with some and there were also
challenges that I could address from a systemic perspective to bring about change.

What changes did you both want to bring about to make conversations around Mental Health
more accessible?

• Mental Health is so stigmatized that there were a lot of changes that could be
addressed but it was definitely a matter of systematic approach instead of trying to
tackle the whole problem at once.
• Broadly, creating platforms for people to just be in a safe space amongst like minded
people was an easier starting point.
• For example, we collaborated with other schools to have group meetings once a week
to allow students to just vent and talk about things that impacted their day or their week.
• It was an adult free meeting, which allowed students to speak more freely.
• Swim For Change started a campaign called Let’s Talk Thursday, which encouraged
people to break down the stigma around mental health by having a conversation about
mental health just once per week.
• By doing this, people could start to feel more comfortable over time and start
understanding mental health on the same level as physical health.
• We also introduced an awareness campaign around self-care, which encourages
people to allow themselves some time on one day of the week to do something that
makes them feel good. So, it could be that you go on a hike or spend a few hours
reading for example, but it must be focused on allowing yourself time to take care of
yourself only during that time.
• The 12-Hour Swimathon is one of our bigger awareness campaigns, which encourages
people to participate in keeping the swim going for 12 Hours non-stop. We have
successfully accomplished this 6 times and have covered at least 4000km of
accumulated distance since our first Swimathon in 2017.
• We encourage all schools to host a Swimathon to allow learners an opprotunity to
become comfortable with speaking about Mental Health and of course also
experience the physical benefit of swimming. Which, by the way, it has been found
that immersing yourself in water under 15 degrees Celsius actually reduces your
stress response ... but that’s a whole new webinar
• These swimathons also help us to raise funds to promote and provide education to
young people and to teachers and parents about properly supporting young people
with mental health challenges.
• The Swimathons play an important role in helping to bring a collective spotlight on
Childhood Mental Health and what we also try to get across is that difficulties can be
overcome more easily with the support of others.
• We have established a partnership with the South African College of Applied
Psychology, who facilitate Mental Health Workshops at schools on various topics,
including Teen Suicide Prevention, Anxiety, the Importance of Self-Love and
Appreciation, Depression and Knowing How To Get Help. Swim For Change hosts
these workshops at no cost to the school and we have recently launched online
presentations to allow access during COVID-19 lockdown regulations. Feedback on
these workshops have been nothing but positive and we believe that this is an
indication of how much young people need to and want to engage about mental
health wellness. We feel that being youth driven, is encouraging young people to
engage more comfortably and this is helping to break the stigma amongst our peers,
which significantly promotes converstion around mental health.
• The more difficult changes are those that fall in the political spectrum because
conversations around mental health wellness are very often the least prioritized
conversations at government meetings, yet this is the level that can make some of the
biggest changes much quicker.
• Swim For Change has been campaigning for change within our country’s legislation for
a few years now and we are finally starting to make in-roads.
• The changes that we are fighting for are in policy changes – We want a National Suicide
Prevention Policy to be implemented and we want Mental Health policies developed
and implemented at our schools.
• Mental health is everybody’s responsibility and a school policy is an essential way of
making a positive change at a school. School policies also signal to students that the
school is understanding of mental health issues and will encourage students to talk
more about their challenges.
• We are also engaged in conversations with our Commissioner For Children about
implementing youth development initiatives, which focuses on young people that don’t
 easily have access to mental health services. We are actively involved in making sure
that children’s voices are heard and acted upon to improve their mental health so that
they have a better chance of living a fulfilled life.

Do you think the work around Mental Health & Children’s Rights has become increasingly
important with respect to the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic?

• Without a doubt it has become so critical!

• In the past 4 months of South Africa’s lockdown, close to 1800 people have died by
suicide – many of these, children.
• Many of our children’s constitutional rights have not been upheld, such as the right to
basic nutrition and education, the right to social services, the right to family or parental
care or to appropriate alternative care and also to be protected from maltreatment,
neglect, abuse and degradation.
• For example, our National School Nutrition Programme was closed down without
another plan to feed about 9 million vulnerable children during lockdown.
• The responsibility of feeding vulnerable children was left to the communities and this
failure to act violates a child’s right to basic nutrition.
• Hunger doubled during lockdown and many children have been left starving.
• Even in medical facilities, it has been reported that children have died because of lack
of resources such as blankets and food – Some dying of hypothermia rather than covid-
19 for which they were admitted.
• Children have been at home with no provision and resources made available to protect
them from violence and there is a lack of state social workers available to remove
children in danger at their homes.
• There has also been an increase in abandonment during lockdown and there is a lack
of available spaces in homes to care for abandoned, abused and neglected children
and those that have been left without family care because of Covid-19 deaths.
• Schools and Early Childhood Development Centres were closed down without a plan
to keep children learning during lockdown. Although online options became available,
the majority of children don’t have access to digital requirements and also can’t afford
to buy devices or the data – as families were already struggling just to feed their
children.
• Certain government Covid-19 grants excluded Asylum Seekers, which placed many
children in a vulnerable position without any income.

What are some of the ways in which you get other children and youth to participate in your
work and how would you like to involve our participants here in your activities.

• Our Swimathons are youth run and we have great volunteers that help us with many
different logistics, such as marketing, tickets sales, tuck shop, safety, music and mc’ing.
It’s impossible to do this event without help and having youth visibly run these events
does help to create a better environment for youth to talk about mental health more
freely.
• We also have student peer supporters that encourage other students to engage in
conversations around mental health at school. Peer supporters are students that are
trained to be able to talk to other students in the school, if they feel that they would
prefer not to see a counselor at that time or feel uncomfortable doing so.
• Our mental health awareness and education workshops are presented by qualified
young students – this also helps to keep our work relatable.
 • One thing that we would love to have more of is young people from all over the world
to share their stories with us. To reach young people around the globe, we have to
embrace social media to make it achievable and we do this by sharing stories of young
people and their journey with mental health. Personal stories give hope to others
struggling – it shows them that they are not alone and that it’s okay to speak about it.
• But the stories don’t all have to be personal, we also want to hear about their projects
– we want to share their projects so that others can see once again that mental health
is part of who we are and no different to physical health.
• We want to hear stories about something you did that made you feel great – and
encourage others to do things that will make them feel great too.
• There are different ways of doing this – you could send us a video clip or write a blog
post or tag us on social media so we can share your work.
• Of course, if you live in South Africa, we are able to help you become a Mental Health
Advocate and Educator at your school by supporting you with workshops and talks at
your school to create awareness – just email us and we’d be super excited to get you
going.
• That doesn’t mean our international footprint isn’t happening – we’re just waiting for it
to be safe to travel again before we get going with our global projects.
• So there are many ways that we’d love to engage with other young people and if you
have anything that you’d like to bounce off us, then just send us an email – we’d love
to chat.

Let’s talk more about your work as a youth activist: Both of you are experienced changemakers
who took their projects to the next level: What message would you give the others who want
to do something with Mental Health as well?

• Mental Health is generally not a topic that is easily embraced but I have found that the
key is consistency. It’s like a healthy diet – you don’t always see the results as quick
as you’d like but they do show eventually – if you stick to it.
• I have been a youth activist for mental health awareness and education for nearly 5
years and it took just over 2 years before it started to feel like people where actually
starting to show interest or benefit from what I was trying to do.
• So, these are the things that I found helped me the most to grow my organisation:
o Know as much as possible about how mental health is perceived in your area
▪ To do this you’ll need to do research on the legislative policies that
include mental health – don’t forget to look for any youth development
policies.
▪ Do research on schools and universities in your area and see what their
policy is on student mental health – you’ll probably find that there are
quite a few schools that don’t have such a policy. A BULLYING POLICY
IS NOT A MENTAL HEALTH POLICY – IT MAY BE PART OF ONE BUT
DON’T LET ANYONE CONVINCE YOU THAT IT IS GOOD ENOUGH.
▪ Policies aren’t always easy to understand – and don’t try to figure it all
out on your own. Find someone to explain it to you – maybe your parents
or older siblings or a teacher. You can even try calling a ward counsellor
for you area and ask them to help explain the legislation to you.
▪ When you have researched this information and you understand what
the policies are about, you can talk from a level of knowledge, which can
be very powerful.
▪ Also, once you understand these policies, you’ll will be clearer on what
things you need to change.
▪ At this point you can start sharing your knowledge and explain to people
why this needs to change and ask them to support you in the process.
o Then there’s the thing of media…
 ▪ Mental Illness is often stigmatized by the media and they often focus of
the individual with mental illness rather than a societal issue, so a great
way of creating awareness is by getting local newspapers to write an
article about your organisation and what you focus on around mental
health and also, get interviews on radio stations. You could use these
opportunities to also talk about promoting positive representation in the
media or about how important it is for journalists to get some kind of
mental health training so that they can be more aware of the way they
do their reporting. These are options are free and can be very affective
as they can reach thousands of people and at the same time your
organisation can get more exposure.
o There’s actually so much to talk about but I know we don’t have time to
cover everything but there is another point that I would just like to talk
about.
▪ Mental health encompasses so much in our lives and it is not an
easy topic to break down but don’t get caught in tunnel vision.
▪ There are a lot of practical ways that are less complicated, which
you could focus on.
▪ As an example, I would like to use the topic of literacy.
▪ We know that literacy is the foundation for all learning and that
literacy skills can help children to live a fulfilled life and enable
them to fully participate in society as they grow.
▪ Research has also shown that children with reading difficulties are
at elevated risk for both emotional and behavioural problems and
that poor readers are at risk of not communicating feeling angry,
sad, lonely, anxious and therefore poor literacy does impact
substantially of socioemotional maladjustment.
▪ Lack of resources is one of the main reasons that 8 out of every 10
nine-year-olds in South Africa are currently functionally illiterate.
▪ With all of this in mind, Swim For Change started a literacy program
which, at the same time has a positive impact on our environment,
especially considering that South Africa alone consumes about 2
million tonnes of plastic per year
• We make up literacy kits using plastic bottle tops.
• The plastic bottle tops each display a different letter of the
alphabet and the alphabet tops are used to build words to
develop reading skills.
• The kits also includes storybooks or word sheets that
cover various concepts about mental wellbeing, so that
young children not only have fun learning to spell but also
become familiar with words associated with mental health
to improve their awareness around the topic at a young age
and learn how to express themselves by using some of
these words.
▪ So, a project like this is a lot less complex but is also very
impactful.
▪ It’s very easy to start a project like this and while it does benefit
our environment by upcyling, you are still focussing on mental
health at the end of the day.
o So don’t limit yourself to options and choose a focus that you are comfortable
with because the world needs more mental health advocates and we’d hate to
loose you because you feel like it’s too big to tackle – every single thing you do
to create awareness and education around mental health does matter!
How was your experience as a changemaker and what do you think works in a proposal if you
want to apply for funds?

• For me, the Changemaker program helped me to take control of my projects by

providing a structure to work with.
• First you unpack what exactly you want to achieve – your goals and project focus.
• Then your plan your project – what activities are you going to do / what will your timeline
look like /what challenges do you face / how are you going to promote your project.
• These are the things that give your project structure but things that you may not know
to include – The Changemaker program guides you through this, which makes it so
much easier to complete your project.
• To me this was instrumental if delivering a successfully completed project.
• Being able to present a well-structured project, shows understanding of processes and
clear goals with a clear route of how you are going to achieve those goals.
• I would say that this is helpful when applying for funds because it shows that you have
a thought through plan.

How can a changemaker start something from scratch? What was your experience when you
first started?

• Starting a project from scratch is very exciting – it can also be quite intimidating.
• People are terrified of making choices sometimes - But do it, because choice is
one of the most powerful things we’ve got going for us.
• So chose to start your project, no matter what because, although it doesn’t
always feel like it, there is support out there for you.
• There were quite a few times when I felt that my project was just stuck and that I was
never going to be able to do what I dreamed about doing.
• But it was the help I got along the way that carried me forward.
• One of my biggest learning curves when I first started out was the Changemakers
program – it was really skills training for me and I still use the project structure when
planning all my other projects.
• It’s a very good foundation.
• Once you’ve got this down, the rest can be built on that.
• Social media, particularly Instagram played a major role in helping us to create
awareness around our organisation and is also a very important channel for us to
communicate with our communities. We also had a website and a Facebook page –
these are all important tools because they give people access to the information that
you are trying to get across.
• The school environment is also a valuable resource because it gives us the platform
to reach many young people at one time.
• Other organisations have also partnered with Swim For Change to support various
projects.

Why would the Changemakers program be relevant when a child wants to change something
in his/her community?
• One of my biggest frustrations starting out and still sometimes, is the fact that adults
can be very bad at taking you seriously. Sometimes they simply don’t want to take the
time to see the potential of your project and sometimes they are just resistant to
change.
• I found that the Changemaker program taught me how to present my projects and
expectations in a way that adults found more favourable – that is, with clarity and
structured processes to achieving my objectives.
• Having the support of an organisation like KidsRights also made me feel more confident
because I was able to reach out to someone at any point if I was struggling with
something and needed advice.
• Also, there are so many inspiring stories of other Changemakers on the website, and
you will always learn something new from the experiences of others.
• Gaining knowledge is what helps you grow and being able to learn from an organisation
that focusses on youth just makes so much sense.
• The program is all about helping you to succeed – and it makes you feel invinsible
when you have that kind of support.

FINAL WORDS:
• Being a Changemaker is not always easy but there will be many waves of opportunity
rolling in. You won’t get to ride them all but when you do get to catch one, ride that
wave of opportunity with strength and determination because no one can change
everything, but everyone can change something.