Nominated by
Sianne Morgan
May 22, 2018
Eden-Mae Davies, aged 19 from South Wales, UK has been instrumental in supporting the Mind Matters project. The Mind Matters project is a mental health and well being peer led youth project for young people aged 14-25.
Eden-Mae has regularly attended Mind Matters sessions on a weekly basis helping to develop and design workshop content and materials to other young people. Eden-Mae helped to deliver Mind Matters workshops within youth settings across the areas to other young people.
She has helped to gather local statistics on mental health and young people through designing a survey for young people to complete. She went out into the local areas and spoke to individuals about mental health and young people which was reciprocated positively by them. Some young people showed excitement of getting involved and helping out in future workshop delivery.
Eden has been involved in the SAFE activity and has been involved in exploitation and safer relationships workshop delivery. Eden committed herself full heartily towards this project and looked to enhance her own skills to support this. She gained training in Autistic Spectrum Disorder to help young people with a learning needs or a disability and attended the safeguarding awareness course to help with support around any disclosures made.
To date, Eden-Mae has engaged and connected with over 500 beneficiaries of the project and helped to deliver 30 workshops to her peers helping to raise awareness of mental health and positive well being.
Eden-Mae supported the Voices that Matters Recognition event and spoke to a public audience of over 1200 people about the project and introduced and delivered a fun positive well being activity to all attendees which helped to bring people together.
Eden-Mae has been pivotal in helping to shape the project so that it responds to the needs and aspirations of young people. Her friendly deposition has developed good relationships with staff, colleagues, partners and more importantly her peers.
Eden-Mae has inspired other young people through helping them over come low level issues within their own lives and helping them develop self help tools like a clam box or saying positive affirmations. Still instills a calmness and trust in others and uses her knowledge and experiences to help other people. One example of this was a young female she met who had been self harming and through encouragement and support helped her to seek professional help and develop a positive mindset for herself.
Eden-Mae has over come some difficult issues within her own life especially with anxiety, low confidence and self doubt that she attributes from being bullied throughout her school life. She is still on her own journey of self development and looks for self improvement techniques but she never gives up and is determined to help others along the way, making a difference, however small to others.
Her style of delivery is unique as she incorporates participatory techniques within her workshops. This helps to engage and connect with young attendees. She puts this down to listening to her peers to ensure that it is animated, exploratory and fun.
Eden-Mae dedicates her energies first to the cause and in standing up for those who can’t and believes that it is important to help others. She searches for ways to make the people around her grow, and this has been through supporting the team of volunteers on the project look at ways to design workshop materials and content that other young people will respond to.
Eden-Mae, through her role in volunteering and peer support is helping to leave a blue print of hope for young people's positive well being in the future.