Active Minds produces Project: Secret

Mount Holyoke’s Active Minds, a chapter of a national organization, held an inaugural event this past week called Project: Secret. Active Minds is a national mental health organization that, according to its website, “empowers students to speak openly about mental health in order to educate others and encourage help-seeking.”  It is specifically aimed at college students and has chapters all over the country.

Bex McSween ’16, co-president of Active Minds, explained what Project: Secret entails.  “Project: Secret is a kind of anonymous group art project where people share their experiences or thoughts without embarrassment. Our main goal for Project: Secret is to explore, as a whole community, the different meanings of mental health that we hold,” she said. “We aim to encourage students to express themselves and create an open forum for further conversations about mental health on campus. Additionally, we want to create awareness about issues that students face with regards to mental health and connect students to resources on campus.”

The project mainly involves allowing students to tell their stories (especially stories involving mental health) without feeling judged or ostracized. Students were able to submit an anonymous postcard with a secret or a story, much like PostSecret (a popular website where individuals can also submit anonymous secrets on postcards).  Postcards are displayed on the second floor of Blanchard at the top of the staircase.

In order to execute the project, members of Active Minds went through a number of processes. “I had a variety of responsibilities for Project: Secret, including brainstorming the general concept, graphic design for flyers, table tents and postcards, tabling for the event, collecting postcards, and creating the display in Blanchard,” said Allison Jacobs ’14, co-president of Active Minds. Jacobs also helped to run the reflective dialogue meeting that took place on April 24.

According to McSween, the April 24 meeting was intended to be a reflective dialogue about Project Secret. “We plan on using the feedback from Project: Secret to inform our programming for next year,” McSween said. McSween wishes to utilize this project as a resource to build awareness throughout the Mount Holyoke College community. She hopes that future events can be held in regards to mental health concerns.

McSween also anticipates that questions related to mental health issues will be answered with this project.

“What do people want to talk about? Together we can change the conversation about mental health,” she said.

Furthermore, Jacobs stated her hopes regarding the launch of Project: Secret. “My hope is that this event will positively impact the student body in many ways. I hope this event will reduce the stigma attached with discussing mental illness and allow students to feel more comfortable having the conversation. Additionally, for students who have personal experience or know someone facing mental health issues, this project serves as a reminder that there are other members of our campus who have had the same or similar experiences.”

Project: Secret’s main objective is to allow students to discuss their mental health in a community without feeling personally attacked for opening their hearts. After hearing and reading these stories of Mount Holyoke students, both Jacobs and McSween hope that Active Minds can build better events for next semester in order to raise awareness to mental health issues, which are prevalent in a college community.