Born out of a shared vision of a creating a community-based mental health awareness platform that emphasizes empathy and exchange over judgmental commentary, Lilac is an Egyptian, student-led online platform where users can anonymously share fears, thoughts, emotions and struggles and receive comments, feedback and support. The growing community intends to be positive and to cultivate a ‘safe space’ for speaking one’s mind about issues that may still be stigmatized in public. “People want to relate. That’s our main aim – it’s supposed to be a community thing, not a business,” Marta, one of the founding members of Lilac tells Egyptian Streets, succinctly summing up the core aim of the initiative. The page shares weekly psychological content including videos and articles that aim to raise awareness about various mental health disorders and suggest different ways of seeking treatment as well as how these issues might be dealt with by the public. Furthermore, Lilac encourages creative expression and regularly posts artworks by its own team of artists on topics of everyday concern such as self-care, career and work stress as well as understanding and managing emotions. From the Beginning In response…
Lilac: an Egyptian Community-based Mental Health Awareness Platform Encouraging Empathy
June 11, 2019
