CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Acknowledge, support, and keep in touch -- or "A.S.K." -- are three steps that make up what nonprofit Active Minds calls the best way to help a friend.
Active Minds and MTV Entertainment teamed up to create the A.S.K. campaign, aimed at helping young people learn how to navigate through hard times and help others do the same. The campaign is now part of U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy's "We Are Made To Connect: The U.S. Surgeon General's Connection Tour," making stops at college campuses across the country.
To ensure college students feel seen by the exhibit, MTVE and Active Minds centered young people in the process through the use of its 10-person Youth Leadership Council.
Tulsi Patel, social impact coordinator at MTVE, said the mental health campaign is focused on resonating with diverse youth, and the Youth Leadership Council helped guide the campaign and its goals. She added she hopes students who visit the exhibit walk away feeling empowered.
"Friends really do want to help their friends, but a lot of them just don't know the right way to do so," Patel said. "I hope they feel a way that after learning A.S.K. that they now have a very simple and effective tool that allows them to create a change -- and not only within their own friend groups, but eventually within their own campus communities."
Charlotte artist Katrina Sánchez is featured as a part of the campaign and the tour. She created four giant woven friendship bracelets capturing the campaign's mission. One reads “acknowledge,” another reads “support,” and another “K-I-T” for “keep in touch.” The final bracelet in the installation brings it all together: "A.S.K."
"I'm really honored to be a part of it, because I think that mental health is so important, and it doesn't always get the support and messaging behind it that I think it deserves," Sánchez said. "It feels really special to be a part of something that helps to teach us all to be able to help each other."
The installation first debuted this year at the MTV Video Music Awards Block Party as part the A.S.K. campaign. Patel said Sánchez's vibrant fiber art was a great fit for the campaign's mission.
"Giving the spotlight to a young Latinx artist, which is really important to us," Patel said. "So that's kind of why her beautiful artwork is kind of like a perfect embodiment or picture of A.S.K."
The A.S.K. campaign and the "We Are Made To Connect" tour have a common goal: building connections to support one another. Art, Sánchez said, can help.
"Art and mental health are really interconnected," Sánchez said. "I feel like for most people, whether they're an artist, or art is their hobby, it's something that provides so much relief, whether it's through the meditation process of being able to create or being able to kind of express yourself, I think that they really just go hand in hand."
The tour is centered around helping college students form habits of connecting with others to improve health and well-being. Data from Active Minds notes 39% of college students experience a significant mental health issue, and a survey from MTVE found nearly 70% of people want to support their friends but don't feel prepared to do so.
"Sometimes we can get stuck in how difficult it feels to change culture, or how difficult it feels to end the stigma around talking about mental health, talking about suicidality, to talking about supporting each other," Q Garcia, the manager of training and content for Active Minds, said.
Garcia said this also helps provide people with a tool to cut through fear anyone may have over making a difference.
At the campus visits, students have several opportunities to engage with mental health advocacy, including attending a talk by the surgeon general about loneliness and connection on campuses, as well as making "connection" bracelets inspired by Sánchez's giant friendship bracelet installation.
"For me, that's like my kind of way of dealing with the world, and being able to just create and make things with my hands is ultimately what makes me feel the best," Sánchez said.
Sánchez said when people typically come across her fiber art installations, they often want to touch and interact with the work. By having people create their own connection bracelets at the "We Are Made To Connect" tour stops, students can be a part of that process.
Garcia said at a recent campus stop, students who didn't know each other when they arrived at the event connected over making their own art and ultimately left with new connections on campus. Garcia called the experience "powerful," noting the art installation itself helps people feel understood.
"Of course, art is also a way to heal through mental health," Garcia said. "But I think even broader when you're thinking about these large art installations, their purpose is to make people feel seen."
Sánchez said she believes the A.S.K. campaign would have had that impact on her in college.
"I think I would have felt very seen," Sánchez said.
The campaign is stopping at University of Texas at Austin on Nov. 8, Arizona State University on Nov. 13, in Brooklyn, New York for New York City students on Nov. 27, and Drexel University on Nov. 28. It will also stop at Hampton College in Hampton, Virginia, though the date for that tour stop has not been made public. It also previously stopped at Duke University.
Those interested in learning more about the A.S.K. initiative and how to help a friend are encouraged to visit asktohelp.com to find tips and resources.
Contact Emma Korynta at ekorynta@wcnc.com and follow her on Twitter.
If you or a loved one are facing thoughts of suicide or self-harm, there is help readily available. You can call Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat with them online. There are also resources in North Carolina available here and in South Carolina available here.