On 2nd April 2023, our team of 10 runners completed the London Landmarks Half Marathon and raised an incredible £9,712 between them!
We had some amazing performances from the team and the atmosphere was incredible with our group of supporters.
Thank you so much to the wonderful runners. Bring on the London Landmarks next year!
Eliza, our Business Manager and her boyfriend Rollo, ran a Pub Quiz at the Durrell Arms in Fulham, London, on Thursday 30th March in support of the team running the London Landmarks Half Marathon for Young Minds Matter.
The room was absolutely full to bursting, with an incredible 130 people in attendance! With typical Pub Quiz rounds like Science and Sport, to a Marathon themed round and a General Knowledge round with a LLHM twist, everyone had a fantastic time and got stuck in.
Congratulations to the winning teams who received a £50 bar tab for the Durrell Arms and bottles of Prosecco.
The Pub Quiz raised £700 towards the efforts of the Half Marathon team, helping them hit over £6,000 which is set to rise following the Half Marathon on 2nd April.
You can still donate here to help them increase their target further: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/youngmm
Thank you to everyone who came along for your support! Bring on the run!
Our very own Joe Deavall, who captained the 2022 Channel Swim team, has won a prestigious award at his swim club awards night! Joe won the well deserved ‘Best Swim of 2022’ from Leamington Swim Club.
The Channel Swim team swum the channel last year in a record time of 10 hours and 17 minutes; an incredible achievement for a team with a combined average age of 16 years old! With Joe’s commitment and leadership, the team worked together to achieve this incredible goal.
Congratulations, Joe!
Taha, our 17 year old Young Ambassador, wrote this poem back when he was 15. Taha has a real talent for using poetry and spoken word to highlight current affairs, and he uses his talent to raise awareness about the issues closest to him, such as mental health in young people.
Taha has been involved with YMM since our first concert back in 2017. We are always amazed by his incredible performances, and are looking forward to welcoming him back to our next concert on 9th October 2021!
Trigger Warning – discussion of eating disorders
Sofia is a 21 year old student currently studying for a Masters in Environmental Science. We asked if she would share some of her experiences with eating disorders, and how she is finding the current lockdown.
I was first diagnosed with anorexia nervosa in 2018 after my first year of university and whilst I like to consider myself well on the road to recovery, lockdown has definitely had a significant effect on that journey. I think for a lot of us lockdown has left us feeling out of control, not knowing when things will be getting back to normal, and for me it’s this lack of control that at times, has meant that my old eating disorder habits have crept back into the forefront of my life.
What I would usually do as coping mechanisms (like going to the gym or eating in a social setting with friends) have instead been replaced by feelings of intense isolation, the same daily walks around the block and even more time at home to sit with my own thoughts and feelings. Controlling my food intake and obsessing over exercise have been at times the only thing I’ve felt any control over. Although thankfully, I am now much better at stopping the old habits from spiralling. Recovery for me over the years has involved a lot of things: CBT therapy, antidepressants, anxiety medication, counsellors and the countless meal plans that I do now help me to feel much better equipped to deal with things than I used to be.
Lockdown has been tough mentally for us all and so we should all be so proud of how we’ve coped in such uncertain times. It’s hard and unsettling to re-discover parts of your eating disorder that you thought you’d dealt with and so I think it’s always worth reminding ourselves that we’re not alone in this silent struggle.
The road to recovery will never be straight forward, I’ve learnt that, but please never forget how far you’ve truly come. Speaking out, sharing experiences, talking to people you trust is never a wrong choice when it comes to your mental health. Be kind to your mind and, as we ease back into some sort of normality, don’t forget just how resilient and how strong you already are.