THE PROJECT
1 in 5 New Yorkers suffer from Mental Illness every year.
The rate of depression is now 3 times the pre-Covid 19 pandemic levels.
THE MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS PROJECT
In 2021, students from Brooklyn International High School participated in a New Media workshop to investigate a community social issue topic of their choosing. Their selection was on Mental Health and its affects on youth in America. These youth producers collaborated together to explore this through various forms of digital media, using photography, video and illustrations. Students conducted Mental Health interviews with members of their community, conducted collaborative research on Mental Health topics and improved their visual literacy skills by illustrating and breaking down complex Mental Health topics through illustrations and infographics.
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The New Media Arts Workshop is a program of the Educational Video Center (EVC), a nonprofit youth media organization dedicated to teaching media arts to develop the artistic, critical literacy, and career skills of young people, while nurturing their idealism and commitment to social change. For more than 36 years, EVC has fostered youth’s critical media and technology literacy, while also learning to harness the power of media to make their voices heard widely on social issues that are of vital importance to our civic life.
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Below is the student-produced remixed video on Mental Health. Bringing together EVC archival documentary footage, (The War Within) and their own conducted community video interviews, the students created a current analysis of the topic of mental health today.
THE TRUTH ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS
18.1%
OF ADULTS IN THE US EXPERIENCED AN ANXIETY DISORDER LAST YEAR
1 IN 25
U.S. ADULTS HAS A SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS
1 to 1,260
THE RATIO OF MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS TO PEOPLE IN THE US
5.9 to to 8.2%
THE PERCENTAGE INCREASE OF YOUTH WITH SEVERE DEPRESSION IN THE PAST 5 YEARS.
Mental health of American youth is worsening. 76% of today's youth do not obtain enough treatment or care. The stigma around Mental Health, in particular within communities of color can lead to a reluctance of individuals to seek help or treatment. This, coupled with the lack of adequate insurance funding for mental health resources has lead to an epidemic of people being robbed of the opportunities that define a good and healthy life.