I joined Time to Change as a Champion in March so I’ve only experienced attending and running events virtually! One of the first events I attended was a poetry slam run by Champions in Birmingham Hub. This was a monthly online event and, after joining initially as a guest, I was then asked if I would host it.

The thought of hosting was daunting initially. It was definitely a challenge for me to be out front and put my own vulnerability on show but it was also an opportunity for me to push myself and it helped my mental health. I also learnt about using the technology for online events, hosting and advertising.

Lots of people have shared their lived experience even if they’ve never written poetry or spoken word before. Poetry gives power to our experiences, it seems to just flow out and people are talking about things they may never had talked about otherwise.  It’s become a really powerful space to express yourself even if you are doing that via silence or just taking it all in. We’ve have poems in different languages and even though you couldn’t understand the words you could still relate to the feelings behind them.

We advertise it on Eventbrite which works really well to reach people outside our immediate network of Champions and ensures people attend who don’t have their own lived experienced or might not know much about mental health. This means we can use the slam to challenge stigma, raise awareness of mental health and change attitudes.

After gaining confidence hosting the slams I decided to set up my own online Tea and Talk event. I run it every third Wednesday of the month with a different guest with lived experience talking each time. I decide on the theme after talking to the guest and seeing what they would like to focus on and talk about. So far we’ve had “It’s ok not to be ok”, “MENtal Health – a man’s story” and “Growing through grief and bereavement”.

For Time to Talk Day we will be discussing suicide and how important it is to talk about it to stamp out the stigma and help prevent it happening.

I use Zoom for the Tea and Talks and promote it via my email contacts I have built up. I usually have about 16 people sign up to attend but then only 9 or so turn up on the day.

It’s really normal to have more sign ups than who comes on the day so don’t be disheartened!

Its really great when you can see people starting to understand the experiences of those of us with mental health problems, especially when they want to learn how to support others.

We spoke about the importance of asking twice if someone is okay and to genuinely listen at one Tea and Talk and a man who attended said he really connected with that and would take it away and use it.

Starting conversations and changing attitudes through online events has been going really well.

Sabika's top tips for running online events:

1. Nothing is perfect and it’s okay to make mistakes.
2. Get feedback and use it to grow and for each event to get better. You can see what works and what doesn’t and adjust the event. Initially I had two guests talking but found that didn’t leave enough time for discussion so I scaled it back to one guest.
3. Work with others and be sure you have support around you so you can take care of yourself. For example, have someone you can talk to if you are triggered by anything during the event or someone who could help out or take over if you aren’t feeling well the day of the event.