\u201cI\u2019m a bit more mature now, so I realised how important it is to open up.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said talking to someone he trusts and staying active have become important for looking after his mental health.<\/p>\n
At school, he realised his experience was not unique.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had friends that have struggled with mental health,\u201d MacInnes said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always like a bit of a stigma around young men and opening up, and we really wanted to change that.\u201d<\/p>\n
MacInnes and fellow student Jake Smith, 18, decided to use their experiences to make conversations about emotional wellbeing easier for other young men.<\/p>\n
The pair came up with 24 Hours for the Lads, whereby Year 12 and 13 students will stay at St John\u2019s College for 24 hours while taking part in sport, activities, challenges and conversations about mental health.<\/p>\n
The event will run from 9am on Saturday, September 19, until 9am the next day; money raised will go to Hawke\u2019s Bay suicide prevention programme Mates4Life.<\/p>\n
Students will hear from speakers and take part in activities including an obstacle course designed to illustrate how carrying a mental load can make other parts of life more difficult.<\/p>\n
MacInnes said the 24-hour format would require the boys to support each other when things became difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re hoping they can kind of correspond to when something else is tricky mentally … you have those boys to help you get through that time.\u201d<\/p>\n
He hopes the inaugural event will be the start of something bigger.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can plant the seed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really hope that we can break that stigma and finally get the boys talking and supporting each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
St John\u2019s College principal George Rogers said the student-led nature of the initiative was particularly important.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s awesome for our young men to lead our young men rather than adults leading the young men,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rogers said even teens who appeared to be doing well could be dealing with challenges difficult for others to see.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we don\u2019t know is the complex internal maze that a young man has to navigate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rogers said loneliness was one of the issues he was seeing among students, despite living in a world where people are more connected than ever before.<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
Uncertainty about the future was another pressure, he said, including questions about the impact of artificial intelligence on jobs and what the world of work would look like for today\u2019s teenagers. <\/p>\n
With a roll of about 400 students, Rogers said the school\u2019s size helped staff build close relationships with the boys.<\/p>\n
He said the initiative also reflected the Catholic school\u2019s approach to student leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cA legacy isn\u2019t about what Max is doing,\u201d Rogers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA legacy is actually about how people feel about what he\u2019s doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
St John\u2019s College student Max MacInnes (left) and principal George Rogers share a handshake outside the school, part of a long-standing St John\u2019s College tradition. Photo \/ Rafaella Melo<\/p>\n
Mates4Life Hawke\u2019s Bay general manager Tyson Ataera said the organisation had trained the students involved in the event through its Safety Aider programme, which teaches people how to recognise and respond when someone may be experiencing suicidal thoughts.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot everyone is going to go and reach out for support when you\u2019re in that dark space,\u201d Ataera said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole point of it is around brotherhood and banding together and looking after one another when those times get tough and when the pressure comes on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mates4Life will open the 24-hour challenge with a 45-minute Scope Talk workshop, helping students identify ways to look after their wellbeing and develop a plan for coping under pressure.<\/p>\n
Money raised through the event will go towards Mates4Life programmes and workshops in Hawke\u2019s Bay, including work aimed at younger people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m a bit more mature now, so I realised how important it is to open up.\u201d He said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[245750,436,42994,102,128721,254298,146978,13887,1906,6623,21109,5634,107165,1777,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-770202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-245750","tag-for","tag-hastings","tag-health","tag-hours","tag-lads","tag-mens","tag-mental","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-stigma","tag-students","tag-tackle","tag-the","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}