My name is Aoibhin O’Byrne, I am from Dublin, Ireland and I participated in the 2023 Northern Ireland/ Ireland summer immersion program. I am a proud member of Team Solace. FFI gets participants to create a social action project to empower participants to strengthen and serve their communities around the globe. My social action project stems from personal experiences I have had with mental health challenges as a young person living in Ireland. I want to make a short documentary about youth mental health in Ireland and the current system we have in place by interviewing people who have experienced mental health challenges and also interviewing mental health and educational professionals.The goal of this project is to raise awareness to this issue, help those currently on a journey with their mental health know that they are not alone and to raise money for jigsaw. FFI has a mission statement known as their RECIPE, which stands for Resilience, Empathy, Communication, Impact, Playfulness and Effort. I hope to show resilience by being vulnerable about a hard time in my life, I hope to make the audience feel empathy for the people telling their stories and I hope to impact the way people view young people who are having mental health challenges. Filming for this documentary will take place over 7 days from mid January to the end of March, with hopes to have editing and post production completed by the end of April. All proceeds go directly into producing the documentary to in turn raise money for Jigsaw, a youth mental health charity.
