Cel­e­brat­ed an­nu­al­ly, Men­tal Health week is al­ways sched­uled to end on Fa­ther’s Day in the USA, a day was cho­sen as the an­chor to make use of the ex­tra at­ten­tion paid to male fam­i­ly mem­bers near that hol­i­day.

As thou­sands of aware­ness ac­tiv­i­ties take place in the USA and around the globe in recog­ni­tion of Men’s Men­tal Health Week, Is­land Wave founder Kalpee (Chris­t­ian Kalpee) opens up the con­ver­sa­tion be­tween his peers in re­gards to the top­ics not be­ing spo­ken about with­in the Caribbean and the im­por­tance of sup­port­ing men­tal health in men.

Men’s Health Week in the USA pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ed­u­cate the pub­lic about what can be done to im­prove the state of men’s health while pro­vid­ing free and con­ve­nient health ser­vices to boys and men who wouldn’t oth­er­wise re­ceive such care.

With the sui­cide rate amongst young black men in the West In­dies ris­ing, this young gen­er­a­tion of men is lead­ing the con­ver­sa­tion as they talk open­ly about their ex­pe­ri­ences to both in­ter­na­tion­al and lo­cal au­di­ences. This out­reach is specif­i­cal­ly shaped around the male per­spec­tive with­in the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty.

Kalpee is joined by Oritse Williams found­ing mem­ber of UK group JLS, Free­town Col­lec­tive from Trinidad & To­ba­go, Gram­my Award-win­ning artist/pro­duc­er Wal­shy Fire, Hait­ian singer J-Per­ry and Ja­maican dance­hall artists king Bling-Dawg and Vyzadom.

The hope is that by shar­ing their ex­pe­ri­ences as men from the Caribbean and their en­coun­ters with men­tal health–whether this is their own di­rect­ly or through ob­ser­va­tion of those around them, they will in­crease aware­ness with­in the West In­dies, of male health is­sues and en­cour­age in­ter-and in­tra-na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions to de­vel­op health poli­cies and ser­vices that meet the spe­cif­ic needs of men, boys, and their fam­i­lies.

As Is­land Wave con­tin­ues to strive in ed­u­cat­ing its au­di­ence about the im­por­tance of car­ing for your men­tal health and up­lift­ing re­sources for men, it al­so pro­motes pos­i­tive mu­sic with a clear in­ten­tion for the mes­sage to bet­ter the men­tal state and en­er­gise its au­di­ence.

Freetown Collective

Is­land Wave and its com­mu­ni­ty of like-mind­ed in­di­vid­u­als are an­chored in their be­lief that suc­cess is mea­sured by the abil­i­ty of the artist on its stages to ed­u­cate and give back to their lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties and those of the Caribbean and African Di­as­po­ra in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

In pur­suit of Is­land Waves Com­mu­ni­ty goals, the col­lec­tive is seek­ing to meet youth and emerg­ing minds where they are and car­ries with it a mes­sage of pos­i­tiv­i­ty, for­ward-think­ing and front­line ex­pe­ri­ences.

“I think in the Caribbean, men­tal health is still a rel­a­tive­ly new top­ic. The younger gen­er­a­tions, be­cause of so­cial me­dia are more open to dis­cussing it, which is amaz­ing, but there is so much ed­u­cat­ing that needs to be done when it comes to not on­ly men­tal health but in gen­er­al, how we view ac­cep­tance in the Caribbean. Every­thing we know is what we’ve been taught so, in my opin­ion, we need to learn how to open our minds, to look at dif­fer­ence and in­di­vid­u­al­ism as the bless­ings that it is, so that the next gen­er­a­tion grow up with the knowl­edge, to view the things that usu­al­ly scare us or seem so for­eign to us, as nor­mal. So that they learn how to en­cour­age their peers, to lift each oth­er up and be com­fort­able in their own skin,” Kalpee stat­ed.

“It’s im­por­tant that our el­ders in pow­er, recog­nise their im­por­tance to help im­ple­ment ways to ed­u­cate teach­ers and stu­dents and the gen­er­al pub­lic about men­tal health and mind­ful­ness ex­er­cis­es, that might help us to deal with the mo­ments, that we know can be ex­treme­ly chal­leng­ing. The quick­er we start the con­ver­sa­tion the quick­er we put things in mo­tion and I think that it starts with plant­i­ng the seed, so that the next gen­er­a­tion has the en­er­gy to help change things.

“I re­al­ly strug­gled with my men­tal health, af­ter a car ac­ci­dent in 2019 that al­most took my life. The most dif­fi­cult part for me was not know­ing that I need­ed sup­port, in my head I was just gonna get on with it and keep try­ing to move for­ward, cause that’s what I’m used to do­ing. But when the pres­sure is re­al, it can re­al­ly pull you down. I was hon­est­ly so de­pressed, my anx­i­ety was through the roof, but I didn’t know how to ex­press that. Thank­ful­ly I had some of the most sup­port­ive peo­ple around me, who helped me get through some tough mo­ments, they en­cour­aged me to speak of my ex­pe­ri­ence and open up and when I did, I couldn’t con­trol my tears, it was lit­er­al­ly a weight lift­ed off of my shoul­ders, and it made me re­alise that I need­ed help.”