Faith Macale
Mental health can be a difficult topic to open up, especially when it’s between a young person and an older person, but the teens of Edmund Rice Community Services’ program in Melton called On Track are making waves promoting the importance of mental health.
Michael Naismith from Edmund Rice Community Services said On Track is a mountain bike mentoring program for teens.
“The group wanted to do something around mental health and a bit of a challenge, so they put together this mental health awareness ride knowing that it’s a big subject for all of us and especially for teens,” he said.
On Saturday, November 8, the teens of On Track rode their bikes around a two- kilometre and a four- kilometre. track
On Track member, 14-year-old Ryan, was one of the teens that spearheaded the event.
“The first talk about it was me and Michael on the bus, we were just talking about the statistics within mental health,” he said.
“This is a few months ago, so this could have changed, and I believe this statistics was between the age of 15 and 27, I think it was 75 per cent of the suicides are male, and it just kind of shocked the group.
“There’s a lot of young people in our age bracket committing suicide.
“I think a lot of older people in this generation grew up being told not to talk, and it’s just kind of the thing (Ride for Mental Health) to bring to the younger community.”
Although exhausted from completing at least 200 kilometres of bike ride, Mr Naismith can’t help but feel proud of the young teens who opened up the conversation about mental health.
“I think what they’re actually providing is a bit of leading in for older adults,” he said.
“As they were saying, it’s harder for the older generation to open up sometimes, so these guys are actually showing us how it is okay to talk about it.”
