Mental Health and the Post – Secondary Student with Angela Sterritt
A few weeks ago, Angela Sterrit, an award-winning investigative journalist, TV, radio, and podcast host, and national bestselling author from the Wilps ‘Wii K’aax of the Gitanmaax community (Gitxsan Nation on her dad’s side and from Bell Island, Newfoundland, on her maternal side) gave a keynote address on mental health and the post-secondary student. What she has to say is shocking. Not only is mental health a serious problem among post-secondary students a problem, it is such a known problem university install bars in windows of residences to stop students from jumping.
Who is Angela: (from her website: https://angelasterritt.com/) She has “worked as a television, radio, and digital journalist at CBC for more than a decade. She also hosted the award-winning CBC original podcast Land Back. Her book Unbroken is part memoir and part investigation into the murders and disappearances of Indigenous women and girls. It became an instant national bestseller in May 2023. Unbroken was nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Awards, one of Canada’s oldest and most prestigious literary prizes. It was also nominated for the prestigious Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Award for Best Non-Fiction Book in Canada.” Angela announced her new book, Breakable, “will investigate how racism and colonialism cultivate harmful behaviors in men and how Indigenous men and communities are breaking cycles of unhealthy notions of masculinity.” Angela has won an Academy Awards (Canadian Screen Award) for Best Reporter of the Year in Canada, a national Radio Television Digital News Association award, an RTDNA award, along with being named in Vancouver Magazine’s Power 50 list of the city’s 50 most influential people. She is a motivation speaker who addresses issues such as “overcoming adversity, breaking stereotypes, and creating change and relationships in Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities”.