When a national organisation seeks to highlight a global health promotion with a message that has been spread locally for a number of years, you have to be proud. On Thursday, marking World Suicide Prevention Day, the National Suicide Prevention Office launched its community toolkit, which is aimed at helping communities start meaningful conversations about suicide, and take action to prevent it. These are the kind of conversations that have been promoted locally through well-known Wangaratta-based initiative Project 365 since its inception in 2021, and also through the Wangaratta Grit and Resilience Program over the course of its life. Project 365 took its own time to mark R U OK? Day this week by launching its next event, 'Above the Noise', which is not planned as a fundraiser, but an opportunity to bring community members together for a night of connection through social gathering and - as it does best - music. It speaks volumes about Project 365 that it faced the hurdles that have inhibited many event organisers in utilising the top level of the Co-Store carpark simply by having the courage to ask, and to tackle each challenge as it arose. That's how individuals, and communities, can best approach mental health - by seeking out the people who can assist in a certain situation, and voicing the need for support. In Wangaratta, we are fortunate to have people working to ensure the mechanisms are in place for residents to do this, and that the 'ripple effect' aims to capture as many areas of the community as possible.
