Language Café n°8: Mental Health

Our 8th language cafe focused on mental health. Mental health awareness is very important to stay healthy, but there are a lot of stereotypes around it.

We started with a few personal questions linked to mental health which allowed participants to share things that make them happy.

Then, participants were invited to write on post-its what comes to their mind when they think about “mental illness” or “a person with a mental illness”. Those thoughts were then discussed and classified between myths, misunderstandings, and facts.

Finally, participants answered a quick “True or False” questionnaire. Despite knowing the correct answer for most of the questions, this was a great opportunity to explain the facts.

Overall, this language café allowed for extensive conversations around the topic of mental health, for debunking some misconceptions and for realizing that we have different understandings of, and behaviours towards, similar concepts or actions.