October NUI Galway Students Take the Plunge for Mental Wellbeing

For the second year running, NUI Galway students will be taking the plunge into the sea every day in November to raise funds and awareness for NUI Galway students’ mental health and wellbeing services. ‘Coldvember’ was organised in 2018 by six NUI Galway students as part of the Movember movement, a leading charity working to raise awareness and funds for men’s health, and raised over €7,000.

NUI Galway student and one of the organisers, Eoin Ryan, said: “Based on the success of last year we were keen to take on the challenge again, however we all agreed that we would like to see the entire campaign focused around the University, so that our effort could have a greater impact in our community. We approached the Students’ Union and the University’s counselling services and we began to discuss where our money would have the greatest impact, and also how we could use our campaign to spread a positive message about mental wellbeing.”

The students hope that money raised from the campaign will provide more access for students to counselling sessions and provide education for staff and students through workshops. They aim to help enhance the use of virtual counselling in the NUI Galway students Counselling Services by providing trained counsellors to review exercises undertaken by students, providing feedback, and organising one-to-one sessions if needed.

Barney McIlroy, NUI Galway student and event co-organiser, said: “NUI Galway’s student counselling service offers free counselling to over 19,000 students, and already does great work in providing workshops to students and staff. However, in a community the size of NUI Galway, and with the prevalence of very broad mental health issues amongst college students, there is always a lot asked of them, and there is always more that could be done. Another aim is to promote positive mental wellbeing, primarily through the act of getting a group together and jumping in the sea. This aim is much less tangible than our financial goal, but is of equal importance to us!”

For those wanting to join or support ‘Coldvember’ please follow the students on Instagram @coldvember_nuig where times and locations will be updated regularly. For more information or to donate visit https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/coldvember-nui-galway.

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