World Mental Health Day at Dulwich College Seoul
On Thursday 10 October, we celebrated World Mental Health Day 2019, with a focus on building relationships. While we provide first-class pastoral care for our students at Dulwich College Seoul, not every school in Korea has this level of support. In fact, South Korea has the highest rate of suicide amongst young people in the world (World Population Review 2018). Highlighting the importance of strong mental health and resilience in our local context has never been so important.
Year 12, embraced the leadership of this event for maximum student agency, with my guidance as Head of Wellbeing, and planned a Whole College aerial photograph - staff and students joined together as a community in the shape of a puzzle piece to represent the importance of connections. Students also united in their ‘Chingu Pairs’ for this activity. This year, all Senior School students were assigned a Chingu (Korean for ‘friend’) partner in the Primary School for ongoing connections and meaningful bonds across the college. The puzzle piece shape and the Chingu pairs was a celebration of the support that our College community offers one another, as well as the broader connections between staff and all of our community members.
On the day, students were invited to ‘dress as their feelings’ in order to promote self-awareness in themselves and the importance of noticing the moods of each other, too. Chingu Pairs were invited to have a conversation about this to encourage dialogue over emotions, moods, and feelings that arise in every human as a natural state. The first step in helping to manage and regulate these emotions is in noticing them.
This year, donations were not a necessity to wear their own clothes, since we are focusing on ‘friend-raising’ rather than fundraising for this meaningful and important day.
A special thanks to Jack in Year 10 for his expertise, capturing the image with his drone, and the Year 12 team for successful planning and leadership of this event.
Ms Victoria Finch
Head of Wellbeing
