Niwa family donates $100K for mental health partnership with MHC

Brandon was affectionately known as “Beej”.

And in honour of Brandon’s legacy, the Niwa family came up with the idea for “The Beej Project”.

Brandon Niwa (photo courtesy Ashly Niwa)

Led by Medicine Hat College, a community advisory panel including Medicine Hat Public School Division, Prairie Rose School Division, Medicine Hat Catholic Board of Education, and Medicine Hat Police will oversee the direction of the funds.

Brandon’s sister Lindsay Niwa says the family wanted to work with groups that already have professionals in place.

She says the intention of the funds are to be proactive with our mental health.

“My dad shared a quote with me that said, ‘We need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re there.’ From that we realized instead of being reactive like we had been for the last few months, maybe we should start at the very beginning and try being proactive by giving kids the coping skills right out of the gate.

Lindsay and Brandon’s wife Ashly Niwa are both nurses and attended MHC.

“I have a background in mental health and the last 5 months have changed how I parent my son completely,” Lindsay said.

It’s been an emotional journey, to say the least.

“Some good days, some bad, Lindsay said. Grief is challenging and I think it’s fair to say suicide grief is its own little entity because of the questions. There’s a lot of guilt and regret. But we’re practicing what we preach about having people reach out and go for counselling. I mean, we’ll miss him forever, it has changed forever.”

The first meeting for the panel is on Friday and they will be assessing the needs of the community and build on the strengths we already have.

“When I go back to what’s really amazing about this partnership we have and this gift is that we’re bringing various organizations together to tackle this issue of mental health as a collective and as a group. And there’s really strength in community,” Kevin Shufflebotham, president of MHC said.

Lindsay says the family has a few ideas that they would like to see the money used for. They talked about having mental health in the curriculum available for all kids in grades K-12.

If you or someone you know is struggling, there are supports available.

The Alberta Mental Health Help Line can be reached at 1-877-303-2642.

In the case of an emergency dial 9-1-1.

For more support from mental health visit the AHS website.

“What harm is going to come of reaching out, what’s the worst that could happen of you reaching out to somebody. You have to at least try,” Lindsay said.

by Chantal Wagner

Niwa family donates $100K for mental health partnership with MHC

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