Photo courtesy of robbnash.com
A Manitoba man will be sharing his story of battling mental illness and depression with northern Saskatchewan schools.
The Robb Nash Project will be Wollaston Lake on Wednesday and will also tour the communities of Fond-du-Lac, Stony Rapids and Black Lake.
It is an initiative that engages young people through the power of music and storytelling to inspire hope and encourage positive life choices.
Robb Nash is the front man for the group, and started the band with other musicians who had overcome addiction, depression or suicidal thoughts.
Nash’s struggle with mental health began at the age of 17, when a car crash on a Manitoba highway shattered his skull.
The injuries were so severe that Nash was initially pronounced dead on the road. He was resuscitated, and eventually recovered, but the lingering pain and trauma from the accident manifested as suicidal thoughts.
His message to students is that they don’t have to die like he did, before they start to live.
Robb and his band bring their presentation to more than 200 schools each year, and have reached over one million students to date through school shows and social media. He walks head-on into difficult topics, knowing that these are the things on young people’s minds: bullying, addiction, self-harm and suicide.
At every show, Nash invites youth who have struggled with suicidal thoughts to hand him their past suicide notes as a gesture of strength.
He decided to tattoo more than 100 of those names on his arms.
His work with students has been featured nationally during Bell Let’s Talk Day and internationally was part of an article by the Washington Post of people who inspired them the most in 2016.