Time to Change at St Pauls Carnival

I’m a Time to Change Champion who has mental health issues; all our champions either have or have had mental health issues. This makes us ideally placed to talk about them. This is why we volunteer.

St Paul’s Carnival Promotes participation in the Education and Appreciation of African and Caribbean Arts and Culture. Time to Change is England's biggest programme to challenge mental health stigma and discrimination. We raise awareness of mental health by talking to the public about this subject. Mental health issues are much more common than many people think. Once people talk to us they quite often talk of mental health issues they have personal experience of.

It was obviously time to change the weather!

Karen Allen of Rethink planned and organised our Time to Change presence at St Paul’s Carnival. We set up in the early morning with a Gazebo, pledge board, lots of Time to Change bottles of water, tea bags (for people to pledge to have a cup of tea with someone with mental health issues) and lots of other goodies. We had also had balloons and bags of sweets. After a rainy start, sunshine arrived in time for the first visitors and then for the entire day. It was obviously time to change the weather!

Time to Change Pledges

We had over 200 pledges

We had 227 pledges, which filled our pledge boards.

Our location was Portland Square St Pauls, Rethink set up next to us, amongst many other important organisations., such as SARI (who combat discrimination), and Second Step (a mental health charity).

Time to Change Goodies

Time to Change also provided free massages, and face painting.

Amongst our visitors were the Bristol Mayor George Ferguson, and Police and Crime Commissioner Sue Mountstevens.

Here are some photos of Time to Change at St Paul’s Carnival -

Time to Change volunteers and Mayor George Ferguson