Central High sixth-former pushes mental health initiative in school

Central High School deputy head boy Nowell Lewin on Wednesday launched an initiative to address mental health challenges.

The initiative, Global Integration Society (GIS), the 19-year-old shared, is family-based and interactive with the goal being to find solutions for persons who are experiencing difficulties.

“If a person is experiencing mental challenges – such as depression or any other condition, then the goal is to find solutions,” he explained.

He noted that he came up with the idea because he has suffered bouts of depression and went through periods of stress.

“I say to myself, how can I, as a person that experience these same things, how can I bring a change to the world?” He answered that question with GIS.

Lewin, who is also a member of the United Nations Club, said his experience at one of the international conferences played a big role in his idea to launch the initiative.

Hailing from the community of Bucks Avenue in May Pen, Lewin had to deal with the stigma that nothing good could come from that area. In fact, it would seem that he was living up to expectations as he entered Central High in the lower stream, never improving to be placed in the higher stream.

It seemed he was doomed to continue on a path of underachievement until one of his grade-10 teachers took an interest in him.

“I came in on a low stream and I continued that until Mrs Samantha Brown taught me. She was the first person to really motivate me as she told me that greatness is within me, and that was when I realised that I could do better,” he shared with The Gleaner, as he recounted that he was never comfortable within himself and was of the opinion that persons in the lower stream cannot do well.

Stressing the importance of support, Lewin said he had limited family support system, but his teachers and other persons he associated with motivated him, which resulted in the transformation of his ‘going nowhere’ to him now harbouring dreams of becoming an attorney-at-law and some day entering representational politics.

“I honestly believe that Jamaican society don’t really pay attention to it (mental health). They don’t see that it is the foundation for crime and violence, the suicidal thoughts, that is part of the reason for GIS,” he shared.