This Friday 21st September, See Change in partnership with TASK (Training and Support Kilkenny) will be taking conversation of mental health problems to the streets as part of Dublin’s second annual Park(ing) Day.
Park(ing) Day is an annual global event where citizens, artists and activists collaborate to temporarily transform parking spaces into temporary parks or installations with a mission to reclaim public space in favour of more people-friendly streets, promoting creativity, civic engagement and unscripted social interactions.
Located at no. 130 St. Stephen’s Green, the Park(ing) space styled by See Change and TASK will offer Dubliners a chance to see the highly acclaimed ‘Chairs’ project designed by TASK students drawing on their personal experience of mental health problems which debuted this summer at Kilkenny Arts Festival.
Our mental health-themed Park(ing) space entitled ‘Make a Ripple’ aims to challenge stigma by spreading the stories of these thought-provoking and vibrant chairs and the people behind them and putting the word on the street that mental health problems are part of the fabric of life and that recovery is possible.
We hope to turn heads and start a conversation about our own and others’ mental health this Friday on St. Stephen’s Green. Everyone of us has the power to break the silence of stigma. All we need is for one person to start talking openly about mental health problems and the idea will spread in a ripple effect and real social change can take hold.
People can make their mark on this movement for openness around mental health problems by coming down to chat to us from 12 to 6pm on Friday, 21 September or by leaving a message on See Change’s Make A Ripple portal, facebook page or tweeting your support using the #MakeARipple hashtag.
Check out the Dublin Parking Day Map to see the 27 other temporary parks taking part: http://www.dublinparkingday.org
