The future is in good hands, at least if the Marin Academy students who founded Marin County’s own Mindful Futures mental health initiative have anything to say about it.
Between Covid, endless access to screens and, well, everything else, it’s safe to say that the youth of today have faced some unique coming-of-age challenges. But the creativity, sensitivity and all-around advancement of mental health priority and destigmatization in future generations is rather awe-inspiring.
And who better to talk about Generation Z’s perspective on such things than the three young women who conceptualized and founded a program to help spread awareness and resources for mental health within Marin?
“I have always had a passion for mental health advocacy,” said Marin Academy student and Mindful Futures founder Mika Kojima. “I was born in Tokyo, Japan, and I lived there for seven years, and then my family moved to Singapore for another six years. In 2019, my family moved to Marin County.
“Having lived in multiple different countries and experienced various different environments surrounding mental health, I have made one critical observation: The stigma on mental health remains. Regardless of what country, school or continent I’ve been in, shame and a lack of understanding and empathy for those with mental health challenges has transcended languages, cultures and countries,” Kojima continued.
“Considering my own experience with anxiety, these factors only furthered my desire to help others similar to myself,” explained Kojima. “I have been fortunate enough to be joined in my ambition with fellow peers Mona Moshashaee and Genevieve Zeches, two incredible people with drive and compassion, hoping to also create change and progression in our community.
Hence, Mindful Futures: Empowering Youth Wellness for All was born through the funding and guidance of the Dragon Kim Foundation.”
Through the foundation, these three ambitiously philanthropic students were able to put forward their plan and proposal for a program to increase mental health resources and awareness within Marin County and its schooling systems. More specifically, they wanted to address the mental health educational disparity between Marin’s school districts and, in doing so, bridge the gap to mental health equality and equity. After consideration, the Dragon Kim Foundation approved the proposal and gave a grant of $5,000 to put toward the founding of Mindful Futures.
Mindful Futures’ goal is, according to its founders, to further conversations surrounding mental health in Marin County’s direct community, focusing on educating and providing resources for youths between 10 and 14 years old. This student-run initiative operates by collaborating with local summer programs such as Camp Chance and DXL and strives to provide accessible mental health and wellness resources and education to more of Marin County’s children.
“The idea blossomed when Mika, who was the one who knew of the Dragon Kim Foundation, came to me and said there’s a really cool opportunity to do something that will impact our direct community, and that we have a way to get the resources and guidance we’d need to create it,” said Moshashaee. “When we all started collaborating together, we realized how important [this project] is.”
“The disparity between, for example, a public middle school in San Rafael versus Marin Academy…that’s what we started to discuss more, and that’s where the idea really began to form,” Moshashaee continued. “Only a few miles from our school is another school that doesn’t have nearly the same amount of resources, and that’s what we wanted to address.”
This heightened level of awareness of Marin’s wealth gap and subsequent resource and mental health access disparity is due, in part, to Marin Academy’s freshman-oriented human development course. All three founders of the Mindful Futures initiative were taught the nuances
of resource dispersion and socioeconomic inequality during the course. And, as a result, these
students are not only well-informed…they’re also out there making an actionable difference
before they’ve even graduated from high school.
“[Resource disparity is] something we talked about in human development, a course we all take as freshmen,” said Moshashaee. “Just having those types of conversations in the back of our minds helped us with developing these kinds of projects.”
As a teacher’s assistant for the human development course, Kojima drew insight and inspiration from the ideas taught in class. This proved instrumental in the inception of the Mindful Futures Initiative.
But what does a mindful future look like, according to three Gen Z Marin citizens? Well, according to our resident trendsetters, mindfulness and mental health can look like many things: lessons in art, nature walks, grounding exercises, meditation, breathing, journaling, interactive assemblies, impassioned speakers and much, much more.
“Something that I think and really try to emphasize is the equality of and connection between mental health and physical health,” explained Zeches. “The way that mental health has been thought of by past generations feels like it was somehow less important than physical health, or that it was not real…so [in our generation], general awareness is the biggest thing—and prioritizing it too.”
“Instead of just focusing on [physical, academic or fiscal wellbeing], we know to also focus on trying to get better sleep and spending less time on our phones, especially since previous generations didn’t have that same access to screens that we did,” Zeches continued. “I personally believe that where your mental health is and where you are mentally has a huge impact on everything else.”
“Approaching [mental health] in that holistic sense is best,” agreed Moshashaee. “In our generation, there’s a general understanding that everyone has mental health and that prioritizing it…or at least being in tune is really important.”
These lessons in building a balanced lifestyle through mental health awareness and maintenance are at the center of the Mindful Futures program. While Zeches shares with her peers the therapeutic benefits of art, gardening and journaling, Moshashaee leads a meditation station, nature walks, breathing exercises and more. And Kojima puts her TA experience to use by guiding more class-like sessions and assemblies.
“We’re obviously not mental health professionals,” stressed Moshashaee. “We’re by no means experts, but we’ve collaborated with mental health professionals…to offer the kind of peer support we would have wanted.”
While many news stories these days can seem to capitalize on calling out what’s wrong with the world, this story is about what’s right. And what better way to reassure readers of a bright future than by highlighting the rather awe-inspiring actions of three local youths striving to close the mental health education disparity gap in their community?
If initiatives like Mindful Futures and individuals such as Moshashaee, Kojima and Zeches are any indication of what’s to come, then the future doesn’t only look mindful—it also looks rather bright.
