PROMOTE MENTAL HEALTH 

 

Join efforts to increase awareness and understanding of mental health in a rural Fijian village where you will live for 3½ weeks. 

 

HOW

The aim is training and equipping local Fijian youth with the tools to be ambassadors for mental health awareness, understanding, and support in the community. 

 

Working as a team with other students, you will prepare activities for a local youth group designed to promote learning, understanding, and long-term action that build positive mental health.  

 

WHAT YOU WILL DO & EXPERIENCE

Participants in this program will gain a set of experiences, understanding, and transferable skills through:

• 120 + hours of hands-on mental health promotion work experience

• Attending training & workshops with the leading Mental Health Experts in Fiji

• Creating awareness and advocacy around mental health, discussing stigmas and misinformation, and opening up conversations about positive mental health through teaching workshops and planning activities

• Expanding understanding of global mental health and cultural perceptions

• Contributing to sustainable impact projects in rural villages in accordance with the Fiji National Development Plan

• Helping Fijian partners (Ministry of Health and leading mental health NGOs) transform the mental health landscape in Fiji

• Experiencing culture & customs of a traditional Fijian village, and learning from local people

• Experiences that develop team work, communication, and leadership skills 

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Students return home with increased resourcefulness, resilience, and more understanding of global development issues.

 

CULTURAL IMMERSION IN A VILLAGE

The highlight of the program is the cultural immersion of living with a Fijian family in the heart of a traditional village.  This requires during the experience for you to expand your comfort zone and embrace a very basic way of life, without many of the known comforts that you are accustomed.  You will experience the daily life of rural Fijians including the intricacies of Fijian communal, subsistence life and the importance of chiefly structures and age-old customs.  

 

JOIN WITH OTHERS

This program is in partnership with Think Pacific.  Students will join other BYU students as well as university students from the United Kingdom in this team experience.