Project Semicolon

Hello everyone! A few of you may be familiar with Amy Bleuel; however, for those of you that don't, you are most likely familiar with her project, Project Semicolon! Unfortunately, on March 23rd, 2017, she passed away due to suicide. Although it may seem ironic that a suicde prevention activist passed away due to suicide, it also serves as a reminder: to put self care first. Amy had a very difficult past (you can read about her here or her full story here), but through her tough trials, she leaves a remarkable legacy.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of advocacy days because I believe something, especially mental health, should be acknowledged all year long. The actual advocacy day is April 16, but I figured it'd be good to make this a month long challenge, and feel free to join in throughout the year and beyond too!

So, what is Project Semicolon?

Project Semicolon is an advocacy project designed to prevent suicides. To participate, you can draw or get a tattoo of a semicolon! If you feel uncomfortable with that, it's absolutely fine as there's more ways to participate to, such as a semicolon shirt! With that being said, it encourages conversations about suicide prevention and mental health in general. For example, "Why do you have semicolon drawing on your arm?" from a stranger could start up some great conversations about mental health advocacy and suicide prevention, and even encourage them to do the same and become an advocate

For this weekend, I challenge everyone who reads this thread to participate! You can make a goal to have 5 people this weekend, for example, to ask you about your semicolon! Feel free to post your semicolon drawings or shirts with an Imgur link, we'd love to see them! I'll post my semicolon drawing too If you choose to do so, challenge someone to do it with you! Adding a quote or inspirational word is totally alright too! Excited to see people doing this for a great cause

Learn more about Project Semicolon here or watch the BuzzFeed video about it here