{"id":18991,"date":"2022-11-28T08:01:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-28T08:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=18991"},"modified":"2022-11-17T15:31:12","modified_gmt":"2022-11-17T15:31:12","slug":"the-power-of-storytelling-in-mental-health-spaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2022\/11\/the-power-of-storytelling-in-mental-health-spaces\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Storytelling in Mental Health Spaces"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Alex Ang \u201922 graduated, she had an internship in the field she\u2019d always wanted to pursue. There was just one problem\u2014she was realizing that she wanted to do something else.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ang quickly found an opportunity to shift her career from STEM to the creative when MTV Entertainment Group announced the Mental Health Youth Action Forum, a new initiative to raise awareness and action around mental health. In coordination with the Biden-Harris administration, they were seeking thirty young creators and mental health advocates with a passion for storytelling to pitch potential public health campaign ideas to an audience of industry professionals, government officials, and nonprofit executives at the White House.<\/span><\/p>\n

A longtime <\/span>blogger,<\/span><\/a> YouTuber<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>Bookstagram<\/span><\/a> influencer with a focus on stories about mental health, Ang knew she was ready for this opportunity. But even with her history of mental health awareness, she credits her time at Macalester for giving her the guidance, development, and experience she needed to grow more comfortable in herself.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt Mac, I met like-minded folks who were open about their mental health and encouraged me to be the same,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t think I would have had the confidence to apply for the program had I not been involved in a lot of leadership positions and extracurriculars at Mac.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Macalester shaped me as a person by giving me space to find my voice. It taught me the value of advocating for myself and the things I care about.<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"
Alex and other MTV Mental Health Youth Action Forum participants<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When it came time to develop her presentation for the White House, Ang looked to another realization she\u2019d had at Mac: the gaps in mental health resources available for underrepresented groups and communities. \u201cIt made me even more determined to advocate for free mental health resources, especially for BIPOC students,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

That drive to advocate for others guided Ang\u2019s work on the campaign pitch that she and her section of the cohort (split into groups by MTV) presented in May, just a couple weeks after her graduation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The presentation caught the attention of Pinterest, who hired the team to flesh out the pitch. Now, Ang is a creative consultant for Pinterest\u2019s initiative to become more proactive about creator mental health. The campaign, a direct extension of the White House presentation, will use digital and non-digital storytelling formats to uplift marginalized voices in the mental health space and destigmatize mental health in BIPOC communities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Knowing that her own advocacy has opened new doors, she encourages Mac students to get involved as well. \u201cI was able to try many things at Mac, and that informed who I wanted to be when I graduated,\u201d she says. But she acknowledges that it\u2019s not always that easy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t get too caught up in what you need to have completed by graduation,\u201d she says. \u201cYou don\u2019t need to know what you want to do after college, or have a job lined up. Trust yourself and your ability to succeed in life\u2014it will take you far.\u201d<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How one alum\u2019s creative advocacy took her from Mac to the White House to Pinterest <\/p>","protected":false},"author":677,"featured_media":18993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":false,"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18991"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30937,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18991\/revisions\/30937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}