Mental health project aimed at pupils

THE power of positive thinking is to be used in a project to see if improving the nation’s mental health and saving lives from being lost to suicide can be achieved by spreading the message to children in primary schools.

As part of her research for a PhD at University College Cork, Mary Spillane Buckley hopes 700 pupils aged nine and 11 can be taught how to cope with stressful situations and to see the glass as half full rather than half empty when things go against them. But as well as aiming to find out the benefits of positive mental health, the project could also raise vital funding to educate children in one of the world’s poorest countries.

The children in participating schools will be encouraged to raise money to support Salesian priests from Limerick in Swaziland, where there is no free education and it costs €150 to send a child to school. “The focus will be to help children become more aware of how fortunate they are compared to those in other parts of the world, and to teach them about the value of education and also, maybe, the value of money,” said Ms Spillane Buckley.