Please share your ideas on what can lead to suicide and how we can improve youth mental health. How does your creative work express those ideas?:
Feelings of not being enough, exclusion, or just thinking that there is no one there for you during vulnerable times of your life can lead to suicide. I think a lot about how, in my experiences as a volunteer bereavement caller who helps with grief support, a lot of the time people just want someone to open up and talk to about how they are doing mentally without fear of judgment. The patients that I do check-in calls with often express to me their appreciation and how reaching out to them means a lot, even though it is just a simple phone call. That’s why I think reaching out to people is so important because you truly never know if you’re the only one someone can feel comfortable sharing with, since some people may not have family members or friends they can talk to about what they’ve been facing. By checking in with our loved ones and creating spaces that are inclusive, we can improve youth mental health. It’s very important to validate and empathize with people’s lived experiences and ensure that we hear, respect, and care for the people we meet even if we don’t necessarily know them on a personal level.

“Through It All” is a poem poster I wrote and designed in hopes to express and share my lived experiences as an Asian-American youth who was raised by Vietnamese immigrants who fled the Vietnam War. This poem expresses ideas of how being resilient, through it all, is incredibly vital. In this poem, I talk about my experiences of being alienated and stereotyped at such a young age because of my race and appearance, but then growing up to reclaim my cultural identity and being empowered by it. I hope that when youth read my poem, they feel empowered to be resilient even in the painful and tough moments of their life and that their stories and lived experiences are worth sharing. I want to share how storytelling can be a means of improving mental health through community bonding. A lesson I have learned and continue to remind myself is that though tribulations may feel incredibly hard to bear at the moment, they are temporary. To the person who reads this poem and may have had similar experiences I did, I hope you know you’re never alone.

Why is the "Create Resilience Youth Art Contest for Suicide Prevention" important to you?:
Writing has always been an outlet for me during dark times of my life and through circumstances where I just felt incredibly helpless. Being able to express my creativity and share my love for poetry and design in the “Create Resilience” Youth Art Contest for Suicide Prevention is so meaningful to me. I remember how exciting it was when I first discovered and learned about the Hold On Campaign. Just reading and looking at people’s art on the website made me feel so inspired and empowered to share my creative work and have an emotional impact on others too. Reflecting on the moments where I felt really alone and hopeless because of things going on at school, both socially and academically, I vividly remember the first time I picked up a guitar and wrote a song. I don’t think I will ever forget that feeling I had of finally being able to let everything out and express how I was feeling on such an introspective and deep level, while also being able to share that with people my age who may be going through similar experiences. Music and writing poetry as a form of art have allowed me to share my emotions with others, whether that be showcasing my poem inside my college’s library or posting an original song I wrote on social media in hopes someone out there can also resonate, relate, and feel heard. It’s really incredible to see how art can connect and bring so much hope to so many youth like myself an be a source of light when things get difficult.