Blanchor goes World Mental Health Day

Try deleting this. For World Mental Health Day Blanchor said it as it is. Some stories cannot be deleted. Anyone who has suffered in terms of mental health, knowingly or unknowingly, and this from a Lebanese with a generational trauma, cannot delete what is going on inside their heads, worse, most people would not even understand what he/she is saying, and even worse? Our day to day language either banalized mental health issues or dismisses them. Answers such as such "snap out of it" or the "I am depressed too" abound. No, you are not depressed, you are having a bad day, depression is way more serious than that. But again, people's way to actually dismiss this is uncanny. I hope, really hope, that "hearing" such stories will make the person better.

Al-Futtaim Honda - or how to talk about mental health without preaching

Is it possible? Could someone in the Arab region have cracked the code of how to talk about mental health without being condescending, without the stigma, without the preaching? I am not inventing gunpowder when I say that mental health is not just a taboo but is also dismissed in the Arab region at large and often mixed with "se7r" (magic) and "cured" by talismans instead of being taken seriously and people visiting proper therapists for it. Yet here we are Al-Futtaim Honda comes with an elegant, purposely understated at for the World Mental Health Day, which - thankfully - does not focus on the car with a copy which - at first - refers to the machine, and which works in a bi-linguist fashion. Only for the reveal to come by - that perhaps the problem is not in the car which puts the earlier sentences back into perspective. A brilliant, minimalist ad, which - of course might not erase all the "shame" associated with mental health and therapy in the Arab region - is a wonderful baby steps. See the ad here.

ICRC Lebanon #worldmenatalhealthday

Sorry this is 3 days late, because world Mental Health Day was on October 10th... Still, a lovely ad by the ICRC (International Committee for the Red Cross) Lebanon for the #worldmentalhealthday - you see it all starts with the basic question... "how are you?" first reflex? the cliche answers - great, thank God, am excellent, all is super, etc, etc.... Then we get to the more problematic "no really, how are you?" - and boom! This is when we get to how really things are challenging and tough and people are barely making it, and everyone is so-so or "pulling it together so as not to cry" or "my back hurts" or "felling basic", "I was much better yesterday" and honestly the list goes on and on. Because yes, take the platitudes off and the Lebanese people are hurting, as in deeply hurting. "Don't let it inside hurting you" - "talk about it" culminates the ad. Of course, this is a stigma as everyone is supposed to be strong and holding it, and keeping everything under wraps, and putting the best foot forward and pretending all is fine and dandy when everything is not. 

So yes, a very good ad by the ICRC Lebanon, check it in full here.