This morning at 10:59am, every radio station in the UK united to play the 2021 Mental Health Minute – an important one minute message to mark this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week. For the fourth year in a row, over 500 stations – including BBC, commercial and community stations around the UK, reached over 20 million listeners with the message, which encouraged everyone to keep the conversation on mental health going.
Delivered by Radiocentre and Somethin’ Else, the Mental Health Minute is created in partnership with The Royal Foundation. This year, for the first time, the initiative is supporting Shout 85258 – the UK’s first free, confidential, 24/7 text messaging support service. The service provides round the clock support from clinical supervisors and trained volunteers to ensure no one has to face their problems alone. Shout was researched and developed by The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge as a legacy of the Heads Together campaign.
The script has been written by poet, writer, and mental health activist, Hussain Manawer, who has been a long-time supporter of both Shout 85258 and the mental health campaigns Heads Together and Heads Up, run by The Royal Foundation.
In the message, David Beckham describes how important mutual understanding and hope are, in this time of reflection, and Jamie Oliver’s words speak to the fact that we all have mental health – just as we all have physical health – and that is something that unites us.
Listen here:
Joining The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in the 2021 Mentla Health Minute are:
Anne Marie
Charles Dance
Dame Shirley Bassey
David Beckham
Hussain Manawer
Jamie Oliver
Jesse Lingard
Joanna Lumley
“Because our mental health binds every single one of us together.”
-THE DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE
