Wellness Wednesday: Health Flavour of the Month: July

University of Kent Occupational Health and Wellbeing Manager, Brenda Brunsdon

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. Below are the health and wellbeing related days for July:

  • Samaritans’ Talk To Us Campaign: 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.
  • 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’.
  • National Hygiene Week, 05-11 July: this initiative is managed by The Hygiene Bank. It aims to raise awareness of what hygiene poverty is and how it effects people. The Hygiene Bank raises funds and manages projects to tackle the problem.
  • Love Parks Week, 23 July-08 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.’
  • National Fishing Month 24 July-30 August: it is researched that a persons’ wellbeing can be improved by taking up a hobby – so, have you thought of fishing. I suppose people would think of it as a hobby essentially for introverts but that’s not strictly true. Friends often get together to fish and groups often embark on trips to enjoy their hobby in new fishing spots.

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