Lord’s & MIND come together for World Mental Health Day with event for local community members

MCC and mental health charity Mind Brent, Wandsworth and Westminster, joined forces yesterday for a special event held at Lord’s for World Mental Health Day.

Service users of Mind and members of the local community were invited to the Ground to take part in mental health wellbeing activities including yoga, art sessions and walking cricket.

Ricky Reynolds, Head of Community and Inclusion at Lord’s, said: “It’s fantastic to be able to mark and enjoy World Mental Health Day for the second year running with our partners Mind Brent, Wandsworth and Westminster. Physical and group activity, such as cricket, can have many benefits and not least in tackling a range of mental wellbeing challenges.

“Our programme with Mind has been running for 18 months as a key part of our wider work within the local community, both cricket and non-cricket related, and across all ages groups to bring the benefits of the Club and Ground to all in the local area.”

The Ground was open to all for World Mental Health Day with facilitators and attendees from community partners Mind, Opening Up Cricket, City of Westminster College, Westminster Recovery and Wellbeing College and Boccia England. The sessions included; Mind Art Sessions, Mind Music Sessions, Boccia, Yoga and mindfulness sessions and mental health conversation workshops.

With the theme of World Mental Health Day this year being ‘Mental health is a universal right’ we planned the day to reflect that by showing people what was on offer for them in the local community and giving them a chance to try out various activities throughout the day. This enabled us to show people that mental health services are there, where they can be found and crucially how to access them.

World Mental Health Day takes place every year and is supported by the World Health Organisation. This year’s theme is ‘mental health is a universal human right’.