AWARE is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year! And to mark this occasion we wanted to invite you to ‘Meet us’. Across 5 video interviews, we introduce board members, team members, volunteers, and service users who passionately have kept AWARE services alive for a quarter of a century. As each interviewee describes their journey with mental health, we want to show you that we employ people with personal experience of mental illness at every level of our organisation.

Chief Executive at AWARE, Karen Collins, says,

“At AWARE, we view it as essential to have people with personal experience of mental illness, whether that is themselves or have walked the journey with a loved one, employed at every level of our organisation. It is always so courageous and empowering for people to come forward to share their stories so that others can be encouraged they are not alone in how they think or feel and that there are services out there for them to access help from. Mental illness can be such an isolating period in someone’s life and we want people to know that they are not alone, that they can come and meet with our staff, group facilitators, and service users who have either been there in the past or are currently in a similar place.

I personally am very proud of our board, staff members, facilitators, and service users that put themselves forward for our ‘Meet Us’ – 25 years Of Changing Lives campaign. We hope that by listening to these testimonies the public will know that they will only be met with understanding when they come to AWARE to seek help. That not only do we work to raise awareness of depression, anxiety, and bipolar to help break down the stigma surrounding the topic of mental illness, but that our team passionately lives it out in our own lives every day by being willing to speak up about it.”

AWARE first started in Derry/Londonderry in 1996 by a group of people that shared a past of mental illness and a dream of a future where more people could get the help and support they needed. From one conversation AWARE was born, and now 25 years on it has grown to a thriving charity whose services have reached thousands, and whose conversations today are changing lives! We wanted you to meet some of those people, and are so proud to present the incredibly inspiring stories from Maryanne, Alan, Caitlin, Warren, and Helen. Please watch the videos below!

 

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