Our Mindscapes Working Group co-investigators, the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) have launched the outcome of their urban investigation of mental health, the film Bronx be Well. We look forward to continuing to work with them and other local and international partner organizations on realizing public interventions through 2022.
Over the summer, CUP collaborated with Teaching Artist Hugo Roja and students from the Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School spent the summer exploring how poverty impacts mental health in the Bronx. This program was organized in collaboration with Wellcome as part of Mindscapes, with support from Rebecca Jacobs, the Wellcome Trust Mental Health Curatorial Research Fellow at The Center for the Humanities.
Please see a recording of the student debut presentation below (the actual film starts at 14:13). Some select quotes from the event:
Richard: "[This project] showed me how to express myself and my creativity. There’s so much more that you can do."
Damary: "Interviewing Meisha Porter [Chancellor of NYC Schools] made me feel like I had a voice and that I was being listened to."
Zanera: "It helped me understand the community and be more empathetic about others and how poverty or unemployment might affect them. It’s important not to be judging other people because it can really affect their mental health."
Amya: "This project was to take a look into the Bronx and the community where we live and how the community affects us. It’s also to see that it's not only teenagers or young people that are affected by mental health - it’s everyone."
A public photo album of the project is also available here.
