Olivia Romalis has begun her 800-kilometre trek across Spain to generate awareness around mental health.
As a member of the Powell River community, she is calling on local residents to help her raise funds for Island Community Mental Health (ICMH) through her GoFundMe page. She has already met her initial goal of raising $1,000 and hopes more funds will be directed toward the cause.
Late last year, Romalis lost her aunt, Diana Nesbitt, to a fatal car accident. It had a devastating impact on her mother, Lisa, who fell into a depression. Romalis saw first-hand the emotional and mental challenges her mother faced and was frustrated by the stigma she saw surrounding mental health.
“As things progressively worsened, I wanted to talk about what I was going through with my mum and her illness,” she said. “The more I wanted to talk about it, the more I realized that conversations about mental illness do not have a place in our daily lives without stigma and judgment.”
She decided to raise money for ICMH to support services for youth and adults battling mental illness that enable their full participation in society by offering tools for recovery and well-being. Through her GoFundMe campaign, she hopes to encourage a dialogue around mental health that combats stigma and shame.
GoFundMe, one of the world’s most popular fundraising websites, provides a platform for people to organize their own campaign to raise money for personal causes and life events and invite those in their community to support their fundraising.
“I’m so grateful for the support I’ve already received,” said Romalis. “I hope that more people who hear this story who’ve experienced mental health personally or as a loved one are compelled to join my mission to make mental health stigma free.”
The number of depression-related Canadian campaigns on GoFundMe saw a 21 per cent increase between 2013 and 2014, pointing to a growing interest in promoting mental health and a turning tide in overcoming stigmas around the issue.
For more information about GoFundMe, which has helped raise almost $18 million in Canada so far this year, or to donate to Romalis’s cause, readers can visit her GoFundMe page.
