Amplifying Young Voices with New Anti-Stigma Campaign

Satellite Foundation, in partnership with Monash Rural Health (Monash University), have launched a new anti-stigma campaign, featuring videos which amplify the voices of young people with lived and living experiences of family with mental health challenges.

This campaign highlights how stigma affects young people in different settings, including schools, medical centers, and relationships with friends and family.

The story of stigma and its lasting effects

Did you know — the term stigma comes from ancient Greek and originally referred to a tattoo? That’s because tattoos were used to visibly mark slaves or criminals as members of society with “lesser” value. In the 1960s, a sociologist called Erving Goffman broadened the definition of stigma as a “deeply discrediting” trait that reduces a person “from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one” (Lancet Commission Report, 2022).

Stigma continues to be harmful today — it hurts individuals, families, communities, and society, and exists across all countries and cultures.

For people with mental health conditions, stigma and discrimination breach basic human rights — including by reducing access to mental and physical healthcare and educational and employment opportunities (the World Bank’s Global Overview of Stigma).

In a national survey of more than 7500 people, approximately four million Australians experienced mental health-related stigma and discrimination in the 12 months before taking the survey. This mostly came from people close to them such as family, friends, spouses and partners.

This is why Satellite continues to work with young people and partners to explore solutions to stigma and work towards stigma reduction.

Continuing the fight against stigma with young voices

Satellite and Monash Rural Health previously partnered on ‘StigmaBeat’, a project to co-create digital resources to identify and address intersectional stigma.

“Stigma is a virus/pollution that continues to grow and thrives in many places – especially in the communities in which we live. It needs to be taken seriously”
– Young Person, StigmaBeat Participant

The current anti-stigma campaign is an extension of the messaging young people from ‘StigmaBeat’ want people to understand. Namely:

• Stigma happens everywhere!
• Combating stigma is exhausting.
• We can all be both victim/survivors of and perpetrators of stigma at different times.
• Stigma holds important discussions hostage. We need to insist on and role model how to have courageous conversations.

In the videos, we showcase young people with lived and living experience sharing where they have faced stigma and how it has affected them. They also share different ways to fight stigma.

Watch the videos here:

Satellite and Monash Rural Health are proud to support them in doing so. We also want to continue spreading personal messages to encourage courageous conversations. To do so, we need to hear more voices and invite video submissions as part of our ongoing messaging.