Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

Destigmatizing Mental Health in the Black Community

For my thesis, I would like to bring more awareness and make an item that can help destigmatize mental health support in BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities, but more specifically African-American communities. My thesis will be a typeface designed to reflect the feel in which mental health should be talked about and how it should be supported within the community. This typeface will then be executed with a handmade planner designed for those specifically with depression or anxiety, to try to help them feel more motivated to start their day or to feel more organized so they can complete their daily tasks. In most African-American communities, there is a stigma against getting help for mental health problems and even acknowledging mental health in the first place. It can be seen as something to be looked down upon which can then lead to people disregarding getting the proper help that they need which can cause more severe problems. This stigma against acknowledging mental health and getting proper help is something that has been hurting the Black community for way too long and causing them within it to suffer unnecessarily from things such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and racial trauma. With my thesis I want to help encourage the black community to get the help that they need when it comes to mental health and supporting those within their communities to do the same.