Rural Mental Health

As part of their Year 10 course, our drama students explored the issue of regional and rural mental health in Term 1 with their teacher Ms Dunkley. This is a very topical subject, particularly for our boarding community of whom many have been sadly touched by farmer suicide.

During the project the students had a tutorial from local filmmaker Jim Gowing of Awe vision (http://awevision.com.au)on how to imagine, film and edit the necessary material for a short feature film. They also had a brilliant talk from and discussion with RAMPH (Rural Adversity Mental Health Program – http://www.ramhp.com.au) consultant Di Gill from Canowindra. Di explained the warning signs, triggers, programs available to help and actions people living in a regional area can take to ensure improved wellbeing.

The students produced some brilliant, albeit confronting, short documentaries; often using images and stories of home. The films below were created by Jetta Kennett and Henry Williams.