A Muslim Mind: Personal Stories was just an idea in early 2018 when members of the Communications Department wanted to invite influencers and personalities from the muslim community to share their personal stories of mental health.

The ultimate aim is to get Muslims creating conversation about mental health; in order to reduce the stigma around mental health that exists in the Muslim community and to acknowledge the need to address it. We want to turn all kinds of stereotypes on their heads, not only do we want people to see how common mental health issues are, but we also want people to realise that mental health effects those who we may not associate mental health with, in *many* ways. From Imam’s, to activist, from psychologists to bloggers – it effects us all.

We want to highlight our humanness, and penetrate the idea that we are not allowed to struggle. We want to tear down the fantasy that social media displays, and we want to bring down the expectations that society may have on us.

It has been an epic, and rather intense journey, with things taking off quite rapidly. It was a bold move, and one that hasn’t been done quite like this before so we were expecting some resistance but we were also overwhelmed at the amount of support we received. The team behind this project didn’t really know what to expect and we have faced many bumps along the way. It has tested our patience, our motivation and mostly our intentions: why we do what we do, but with every edit, with every typo, with every out of focus shot, our conviction has only
grown.

So, here we are – with a handful of brave souls, the first set of many personal stories have finally been produced and soon to release. We hope that these videos will not only focus on personal stories but also provide educational value from an Islamic perspective, a professional view point, a community outlook and most importantly, provide *human* experience. We hope they will reach out to all corners of the ummah, and encourage more people to understand themselves first and foremost, to understand mental health and how to support others and most importantly, to encourage those who are struggling to reach out for the help that is available.

We hope to change lives, and put mental health first.

This is our hope and our journey, will you join us?

Communications team, Inspirited Minds