General News
7 June, 2023
Students lead mental health initiative
MORTLAKE College school captain Mitchell Hughes has united students in raising mental health awareness; one push up at a time, all 3144 of them.
MORTLAKE College school captain Mitchell Hughes has united students in raising mental health awareness; one push up at a time, all 3144 of them.
The students are undertaking the challenge this month, between the June 1-23, to raise awareness for mental health as part of The Push Up Challenge.
The challenge started in 2016 after founder Nick Hudson got together with mates and made a pact to hit their target of 3000 push ups in a month.
In 2018, Mr Hudson underwent open heart surgery and fell in to depression during his recovery process, but he vowed to grow the challenge to support mental health causes.
In the years since the challenge has grown to be Australia’s largest mental health and fitness event, raising over $26 million for mental health charities.
The challenge hit its stride in 2019, rapidly expanding to include over 50,000 Australians – among those participating that year were Mortlake College students.
“In 2019 Mr (Nathan) Jones had our advanced class do the challenge, and I thought it would be a pretty good initiative for the school,” Mitchell said.
“As a school captain this year I wanted to bring something to the school community, to make a positive mark, and I thought this would be a good way to get people involved.”
Mitchell said the challenge this year set out to shine a spotlight on the Australians who had lost their lives to suicide.
“The goal is to do 3144 push ups from June 1 through to June 23,” he said.
“It’s a big goal, but that’s because it’s the number of people who had committed suicide in 2021; which is the most recent available data.
“It’s all about mental health, and doing what we can to try and reduce that number.”
Students are able to track their process using an app on their phones, which also provides information to grow understanding of better outcomes and raise mental health awareness.
“Each day the target that is set corresponds to a fact about mental health,” Mitchell said.
“So, for example, the first day of the challenge was 96 push ups because 96 per cent of Australians aren’t meeting the dietary guidelines.
“Physical health is important to helping improve mental health, so we learn along the way how to make positive changes.”
Mitchell gained the support of Mortlake College staff and his fellow students, who were quick to throw their support behind the concept.
He said the unifying aspect of undertaking the challenge together was helping to create strong connections among the school community.
“Years 7-12 were all given the option to enrol, it wasn’t compulsory, but a lot of students are taking part,” Mitchell said.
“We also had the preps get involved this week, which was great.
“At Assembly we get some people up on stage and have a bit of a push-up competition, which is something the whole school loves and creates a little competition.
“It is helping to bring us all together; which is great because one of our goals is to unite everyone together in a bid to improve our mental health.”
