Speak Your Mind by Havas

Only 38 countries globally have a national suicide prevention strategy. And on average, countries spend less than 2% of their health budgets on mental health. Mental Health is a taboo topic for most of this world. Havas wants to change that.

Ahead of World Mental Health Day on 10 October, Havas New York and Havas Lynx have teamed up to create a powerful campaign to amplify Speak Your Mind, a grassroots movement powered by United for Global Mental Health to drive greater government action on mental health as a serious epidemic affecting everyone across the globe.

The campaign is anchored by a voice petition that goes live today on gospeakyourmind.org, where people are encouraged to literally speak their mind about mental health. The pledges are personalized 40-second recorded messages on why governments need to act on mental health, as it’s estimated by The WTO that every 40 seconds someone dies by suicide.

At the heart of the Speak Your Mind campaign is a living logo created by Havas that will measure the amount people speak their mind through the petition. As more people record their pledges, the logo grows. Havas and partners (15 countries are involved) are aiming to reach 1m petition “signatures” (by way of audio and video recordings) by March 2020.

Havas has also spearheaded the development of a short film with Zak Williams, mental health advocate and son of Academy Award-winning actor Robin Williams, that brings awareness to the need to end the silence around mental health in a powerful way. The film will debut at Monday’s UN High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage, which includes a historic commitment to improving mental health, establishing it as equally important to physical health for the first time.