One of my heroes is Muhammad Yunus. In providing inclusive microfinancing or small loan opportunities for Bangladesh’s poor, he won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his social business, Grameen Bank. His profitable business, along with its social model, has since spread across the globe.
He has inspired me to start my business as a social business, one which puts solving a problem affecting many at its core.
I was shocked, but not surprised, that headspace’s 2022 National Youth Mental Health Survey revealed 62% of young people aged 12-25 feel lonely and left out often or some of the time, a huge jump from 2020’s 52%. Combatting this loneliness, the survey says, is about ensuring teenagers make meaningful connections, ones that make them feel understood and supported, otherwise there can be serious health complications. As headspace’s CEO Jason Trethowan states:
“We know there’s a vicious cycle where feeling isolated can impact mental health, which in turn leads to further social withdrawal and poorer mental health.”
This is borne out by the evidence – 40% of Australians aged 16-24 experienced a mental illness in the past year.
It made me think about Harvard’s longest longitudinal study, which reveals that the one factor that overwhelmingly predicts both a healthy and a happy life is a person’s satisfaction with their relationships – quality, not quantity.
This got me thinking. The health and wellbeing of teenagers is a precious commodity and needs to be cultivated and celebrated, not be treated as an acceptable casualty of a modernising world.
Having provided inclusive opportunities for people with disability and experiencing homelessness to connect with their wider communities of people and service, and providing meaningful global citizen opportunities for my students as a teacher, I thought, I can help out with this problem in my community with a social business!
And then I read in the recent Northern Beaches Council’s survey of young people, that the number one thing teenagers want are opportunities to connect meaningfully with their communities. I thought, “Let’s break that vicious cycle.” Will families bring me in to connect with their teenager? Will they let me help their kids make community connections in which they are important contributors? Will they let me help teens do what they want to do and do it well?
Despite my best efforts, I found it really hard to support teens in need in my role as a teacher and pastoral carer in the way that I wanted to – on an individual level, with lots of the teen’s input and action, without the formalities and hierarchy and school rules. I also did not have the time.
So I made the time.
And I am doing something.
I am providing a bespoke teen-led, strengths-based, goal-oriented service that I have dreamed of providing for a while now, giving back to the community by helping leaders of tomorrow flourish today.
I pledge that should my business grow, I will be an inclusive employer and take on one mentee for free each year.
Please take my QUESTIONNAIRE to see if we would be a good mentor-mentee match!
Bibliography:
headspace 2022, two thirds of young people feel lonely, viewed 19 February 2023,
<https://headspace.org.au/our-organisation/media-releases/two-thirds-of-young-people-feel-lonely/>.
Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T.B. & Layton, J.B. 2010, ‘Social Relationships and Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic Review’, PLOS Medicine, vol. 7, no. 7, p. e1000316.
McGorry 2022, ‘There’s an illness impacting nearly half of all young Australians. It’s time to do something about it’, ABC News, 4 August, viewed 19 February 2023,
<https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-05/youth-mental-health-crisis-time-to-respond/101295194>.
Snibbe, K. 2023, ‘Relationships make us happy — and healthy’, Harvard Gazette, viewed 19 February 2023,
<https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/02/work-out-daily-ok-but-how-socially-fit-are-you/>.