Hello, I am a recent Zoology graduate of Bangor university. This September I will be taking on the challenge of climbing Kilimanjaro to raise money and increase awareness of mental health by supporting the brilliant Mind charity!

Before university, mental health was not something I really thought about. My time at university was really revealing to me both about my own mental health and others. At university I started to suffer from what now I understand to be anxiety and depression. I tried to deal with these issues on my own. At the time I wish I had known about charities like Mind and the services and help that they provide.

In the UK suicide is the leading cause of death for people aged 20-34. This is just one statistic but it is very revealing. While we have a world class NHS for physical ailments the same is not true for mental health problems.

More stats:

* During the last parliament, funding for mental health services in England fell in real terms by 8.2%, despite the prime minister publicly committing to making mental health a priority. This was a decrease in funding of £600m.
* Around 5140 people took their own lives in England and Wales in 2013, an average increase of 4% since 2012. With a 23% in Wales.
* 57 million prescriptions for antidepressants were administered by the NHS at a cost of £252 million in 2017, and increase of 46% since 2012.
* 1 in 4 will experience a mental health issue in any given year. And only 1 quarter will receive help.
* There are 132 local Mind associations across England and Wales providing essential services such as supported housing, drop-in centres and self-help support groups.
* Local mind services have supported over 425,000 people.
* Mind have helped over 500,000 people in the workplace.
* Mind have trained 7500 emergency service managers across England and Wales.
* In 2017-18 £6.8m was raised from local Mind shops and donations.
* Mind have provided information about mental health online that has been accessed over 12,000,000 times.
* Over half of Mind staff volunteers and trustees have personal experience of mental health problems that they draw on in their daily work.
* Mind answered over 100,000 phone calls on their helpline in 2017-18.
(These stats are from Mind's annual review of 2017-18. You can read all about this and loads more on their web site).

Mind makes a big plan every 5 years and are currently half way through their 2016-21 period. So now is a great time to help them reach their goals.

Mind budgets its spending based on 6 main categories, including Staying well, Empowering choice, Improving services and support, Enabling social participation, Removing inequality of opportunity & other expenditure.

I feel very strongly about mental health and I see it as a problem connected to environmental destruction and pollution, as well as rising inequality and lowering standards of living, especially in the UK.