Below is your heads-up calendar for the health and wellbeing initiatives for the month ahead. The summer sees fewer awareness campaigns. This is because so many people are on holiday and organisations perceive this as a blocker to achieving their awareness aims. Nevertheless, here are the health and wellbeing related days for July:
- Samaritans’ ‘Talk To Us’ Campaign: a month long campaign highlighting the essential work that the Samaritans do supporting the mental health of anyone who contacts them. The highlight of the month is ‘The Big Listen Day’ on 24 July when each branch holds events. The Samaritans specifically chose this day because they are available to listen 24/07.
- Plastic Free July Month: this is part of an international initiative that encourages everybody to limit their use of plastic. This year, the push is to get people to pledge refusing to use single use plastic items.
- National Bereaved Parents Day, 03 July: the aim of this day to raise awareness of all parents who have lost a child of any age, and from any circumstance. The theme for this year is ‘Keeping Their Memory Alive’.
- Festival of Archaeology 16-31 July: this event is promoted by the British Council for Archaeology. The theme this year is ‘Journeys’. The aim for this year is ‘We hope the theme of Journeys will help people discover the archaeology that is all around them.’ Follow the link to access information on all the events they have planned. 22 July is ‘Ask an Archaeologist’ Day.
- Love Parks Week, 29 July-05 August: this campaign is organised by Keep Britain Tidy. To find out more, follow the link. This is a very worthwhile initiative considering the proven link between good wellbeing and interacting with nature
- National Schizophrenia Awareness Day, 25 July: supported by the organisation, Rethink.Org, this day aims to shine ‘a light on the challenges faced by hundreds of thousands of people living with a diagnosis of schizophrenia in the UK and millions more worldwide….set out the steps we can all take to break down the stigma and discrimination surrounding this much-misunderstood illness.’
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