The Sunflower Project

The Sunflower Project is a campaign that believes in the importance of education, empathy, mentorship and communication when it comes to ending the stigma attached to mental health.

WRITTEN BY BETH EVANS

The campaign was founded by Bethan Evans and is now co-run by Bethan, Ffion McGowan, and Hannah Goodyear.

On 13th November 2019, I swallowed several handfuls of pills in an attempt to end my life. Only with time have I come to understand that I didn’t want to die, I just didn’t know how to live. I found my purpose in life through sharing my story, educating others, and raising awareness about mental health.

Being able to work together as one unit, to display strength and unity and fight the stigma of mental health, enables us to flourish and keep growing. This is the idea at the heart of The Sunflower Project.

We created an online form that allows people to anonymously leave messages of hope for anyone struggling with their mental health. The form received lots of attention, and in just one week we had 249 anonymous messages.

We printed out a QR code, and posted it through people’s doors in Barry. It was important to me that people locally could participate in the project, and have their voice heard.

The ‘Messages of Hope’ campaign grew massively in just one week and we received over 110 video messages from people all over the UK, stating ‘There is Hope.’

I put the messages together in an art piece which highlighted just how much support the project received in a short amount of time.

The project shows that there are people, even complete strangers, who care about you and are ready to support you when you would like the help, you just have to reach out. It is not weak to speak.