Pure Mental NI is currently the only youth-led mental health charity in the UK with all those involved aged under 25
It started as an after-school club to try and help young people understand their mental health and within a few short years, an established charity was born to bring about real change in mental health in Northern Ireland starting with education.
"At that time as well there was no government in Northern Ireland so we thought let's start by doing something very small scale. We held a protest in Belfast in early 2020 which got a lot of media attention and that kind of made us realise we could use this activism to help try and create solutions to the problems we were facing."
Pure Mental became a registered charity in December 2021 and despite the challenges associated with Covid and with Matthew having to shield throughout the pandemic, the charity remain determined to bring about real change for young people. He explained: "I was 17 when Covid started and I'm 20 now so it's been a substantial amount of time. I obviously missed out on my first year of University experience in person and a lot of my course was in person so you kind of felt like 'was it going to affect your grades?' but also that social aspect of making new friends as well. It just felt like I missed a key moment in my life as a fresher at University as you only get that experience once.
"I still can't quite believe I won to be honest. I was nominated by one of the leaders in the One New World programme who had seen a whole lot of personal growth from me over the last year, said Matthew.
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