Heartstrings, Heartbeats sparks mental health conversation
In their quest to normalise conversations around mental health, multi stakeholder projects, Heartstrings & Heartbeats has brought together scores of creatives from all walks of life to relay mental health messages through a social media challenge.
The challenge is fast gaining traction, sparking and triggering dialogues on issues of mental health among creative people and the communities they live in.
“The social media challenge encourages people to speak out. Mental illness is not reserved for a certain group of people, everyone is going through it. Part of the project is to ensure that there is a safe space to speak about mental health without being harshly judged or looked down upon,” said the project’s co-founder from Infers Group, Abraham Mamela.
Mamela also said the challenge is to encourage creatives mostly or those who find themselves working in a job that requires them to use their imagination to share their thoughts on mental health and their experiences if they are comfortable to talk. “We hope that this movement will be able to attract the right people and collaborators as well as people accepting that mental health is part of life.
The project kickstarted with the release of an upbeat hit single dubbed ‘Troubled’ produced by Danish based Kirat ‘Kiz’ Singh well known as ‘Oceans’ alongside Danish artist Jacob ‘J Spliff’ Jørgensen, local creatives Solly Sebotso and Mpho Sebina.
In the past two months the artists and the production team have been hard at work to produce a music video that will further address the important subject matter of driving open conversations around mental health.
“The visuals will be released soon,” said Mamela. “The song encourages the world to realise that we are all troubled, a reminder that you are not alone. In addition to the social media challenge, I would like to encourage those who can to challenge each other through their creative means and tag the
movement on their videos,” he highlighted.
While he was in Botswana one of ‘Troubled’ vocalists, J Spliff undertook the challenge sharing his two cents on the subject of mental health. “I have had a pretty tough life. I carry a lot of trauma and stress. I have had a good experience trying to talk about it for my whole life and trying to express it through my
music and I know it’s a common problem we have in the creative industry,” he said.
“There are lot of people going through a hard time.
There is a lot of pressure and its kind of frowned upon if you are weak and we need to change that. I am here to encourage everyone to speak up if you are having a bad day
and feeling challenged because you are not alone. Make a video like this and talk to your people.”
Other creatives including Zuziwe Mavuma, Debbie with a T, Sydney Sithole among many others supported and participated in the Heartstrings & Heartbeats social media challenge.