Northern Ireland TikTok star joins forces with AWARE NI

Northern Ireland social media sensation and magician, Joel M, will lend his support to an exciting new poetry competition to support children’s mental health organised by AWARE NI, the depression charity for Northern Ireland.

The competition ‘Express Yourself’ will seek submissions from Primary 6 and 7 pupils to express their thoughts and feelings about the past year through creative writing, encouraging young people to think about their experiences during the coronavirus pandemic.

The shortlisted poems will be selected by Joel M who recently fronted his own BBC television show ‘Life is Magic’ and has one of the largest TikTok followings in Ireland with over 7 million fans.

AWARE NI hopes for a future where mental health is a topic that can be discussed openly without stigma.

The poetry competition aims to help normalise the conversation around mental health. 2020 was a difficult year for many, but perhaps the voices that haven’t been heard as loudly are children.

Throughout the pandemic, children have had their routines altered, faced the challenges of home-schooling and lack of contact with friends.

AWARE NI hopes poetry will help children express their fears or worries or even write about the time they have enjoyed such as spending more time with parents or carers.

Karen Collins, Chief Executive Officer at AWARE NI said, “We are excited to partner with Joel M for our ‘Express Yourself’ children’s mental health poetry competition.

“Poetry is a creative way to allow children the freedom to debrief on life during a pandemic and to allow us, and the adults in their lives, the education of seeing an outlook from their perspective.

“AWARE NI hopes that through poetry it will aid many conversations on mental health in schools and at home so that our children can grow up knowing that they can talk freely about what is going on inside their minds at all times, good or bad.

“We hope this campaign will add value to all of our lives.”

She added, “Joel is a fantastic young role model for the future generation, and along with his dedication to practising mindfulness, we know he has a passion to help us educate children on how to achieve positive mental health before they navigate their teenage years.”

The competition will open for poetry submissions during Children’s Mental Health Week in February with the lucky winners having a chance to appear on Joel’s social media channels in front of millions of people and learn a few magic tricks too.

The winning schools will receive a performance by the star magician at their own assembly and demonstrating their dedication to meeting the mental health need of the young generation, AWARE NI will deliver ‘paws b’ 6-week mindfulness programme to the top two winning classes.

Joel M said, “I’m so excited to be a part of this incredibly meaningful campaign with AWARE NI.

“I hope that through the freedom of creativity we can encourage the topic of mental health to be normalised.

“If you are a teacher or a principal in Northern Ireland of P6 and P7 students then please contact AWARE NI and enter this competition, because I can’t wait to start reading the poetry,” he added.

For more information go to www.aware-ni.org/express-yourself

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Posted by NewryTimes News on Jan 22 2021. Filed under Community, What's On. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry