MARK your calendars for April 25, as a new event dedicated to raising awareness to mental health and suicide awareness/prevention is currently being organised and it promises to be a very special occasion.
‘Walk 4 Life Kerry’ will be a 5km walk that will be held around Tralee with the aim of raising awareness of suicide along with mental health issues.
The event will be helping to raise funds for organisations throughout Kerry that help to promote positive mental health and the message of suicide awareness and prevention.
Continued below…
The idea behind the walk came from Colin ‘Poshey’ Aherne who is working alongside Lorraine Bowler of the North & East Kerry Development (NEKD) to help get the event up and running.
TraleeToday.ie spoke to Poshey, firstly to see how the idea for the walk came about.
“The reason behind it is that I’ve personally lost a few friends to suicide. What really put it into my head was that I had a good friend [who died from suicide], and I was talking to his mother recently. She was saying about how it could have been helped. And that he never knew that there could have been help out there.”
“This kind of triggered it in my head. There’s not much in Tralee really. I want to get this out there, I want to get the word out there.”
The sentiment is a strong one, and his passion and motivation for the project is clear as we speak. I asked him next about what message or sentiment he was hoping to achieve by having this event held here in town.
“I just want to get the awareness and the word out there again about the available organisations out there for suicide awareness and mental health issues as well.
“Organisations such as Jigsaw Kerry, Console and Pieta House really. It’s a broad spectrum between mental health and suicide awareness, they’re both linked, but it’s a broad umbrella they’re under,” said Colin.
So, what can we expect to from the day itself?
“It will be a 5k walk. I’m looking to have a guest speaker at the end of the 5k. I have one or two in mind that we’re working with at the moment. They’d just have a few words, an inspirational/feel good kind of thing.”
Poshey is hard at work sorting out the final details on the venue and behind the scene details and once that is in the bag, the route will also be quick to fall into place.
Keep up to date on details as they are announced on the event through the Facebook page found here and via the Twitter page which can be found here.
‘Walk 4 Life Picture 🙂 pic.twitter.com/ydXXwFqAeA
— Walk 4 Life (@Walk4Lifekerry) February 11, 2015