In 2010, a young man called Jack died by suicide in his dorm room at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. His death shocked his community, and led to his parents’ founding Jack.org, a website dedicated to students raising awareness about mental health. Jack.org also hosts a mental health summit every year in Toronto for students to attend.
The Jack.org project quickly expanded out from Kingston and individual chapters of Jack.org were established at universities across Canada, now numbering 75 total. Madi Wood, a third-year student completing her BA in Human Geography alongside a Masters of Management in Sauder, has just founded a Jack.org chapter at UBC; it is the first Jack chapter in BC.
“It started out with just me and one other girl, and now it’s thirty people,” says Madi of the club’s growth over the past month and a half. The goal of the club, Madi explains, is “to start a positive conversation about mental health.”
“When I first started this whole thing I thought, ‘nobody’s going to be interested.’ I actually get one person everyday who messages me or emails me being like ‘how can I get involved?’” She adds, “there’s so many other groups on campus that work with mental health… but I think what makes us unique is that we are connected to so many other chapters, so if we’re stumped for an idea, we have access to 74 other chapters.”
Madi explains that Jack.org UBC is very interested in collaborating with other groups on campus. They are already going to be showcasing a video about mental health at the Gammies, an annual philanthropy event run by UBC’s Gamma Phi Beta chapter, which will be held on November 2nd at the Norm Theatre at 7pm (proceeds from the event go to Girls on the Run).
Jack.org is also going to be collaborating with UBC Med MIND (Mental Illness Network for Destigmatization), a campaign on campus organized by medicine students by creating a video featuring student leaders talking about their experiences with mental health.
“We’re also going to try and send at least two people to the summit, which is going to be in March, in Toronto” adds Madi. She adds that they want to hit their goal of “having over 2000 conversations [about mental health] by the end of the year. 2000 positive conversations.”
“I would hope that the conversations we have with people encourage them to really check in with themselves,” says Madi. She adds that she would like to see “when someone asks you how you’re doing, to have [that question] be meaningful and not just a ‘fine, I’m fine, whatever.’”
“At UBC, in terms of its student body, it’s one of those things where everybody knows it’s an issue,” says Madi. “Part of it is that fact that if you do have any sort of mental health issues, you can’t just openly talk about it. So it’s like, yes, policy change is important, second, being able to have that open conversation with anybody who’s willing to listen and willing to have a supportive conversation is so important.”
For more information on UBC’s Jack chapter, or to find out how you can get involved, you can check out their Facebook page or email ubcjackchapter@gmail.com.