Youth Mental Health Series – Session 2 | Goals Lounge

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Gull's Lounge. It is wonderful to have so many friends, colleagues, and most importantly, young leaders with us. Thank you for being part of today's celebration of One World, One game, one goal. The World Cup final is finally here this Sunday, and you can feel the energy in this room and across the world. So let me start by asking by a show of hands, who is rooting for Spain?

Woo!

All right, we got a little Spain action here. And who is cheering for Argentina?

Woo!

Okay. So as expected, we support different teams. Go Spain! But regardless—

Yes!

Of the final score, sports is more than who wins or loses. Sports brings people together, supports our mental and physical health, and reminds us what we can do more when we work together. My thanks to the United Nations Youth Office team for partnering with us to shine the light on youth mental well-being. I also want to thank all the athletes and partners for helping to lead this very open conversation. Before we get into today's session, which is going to be moderated by Mary Connor— she's a former professional football player and coach and now CEO of Common Goal— it is now my great pleasure to introduce Felipe. He's the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Youth Affairs And a dear colleague.

Felipe, the floor, or the pitch if I should say, is all yours.

Thank you, thank you. Always a pleasure to be at your house, this Gold's Lounge, which is actually host to many of powerful conversations in a much more informal setting than some of the conference rooms. So thank you, thank you all for being here. Many of you traveled so many hours join us in this big moment, big event, just ahead of the FIFA World Cup men's final, but actually trying to capture the power of football to drive social changes. And we believe, we are convinced that football is definitely one more tool to really drive the Sustainable Development Goals, and especially to drive and to go deeper into this topic of youth mental health and well-being. You know more than me, many of you are in the grassroots implementing initiatives, how critical is this topic for our communities and how young people are expecting also something different from us. They expect intergenerational dialogues, they expect that we partner with them. And on the football pitch, it's a wonderful space to teach skills, to teach values, and to come communities together. So really, thank you. Thank you for trusting in our call. Thank you for being part of the United Nations. This organization, it's about bringing the world together, and the world is more than governments. Of course, at the center, it's our governments, but it goes far beyond. And it's very important also that we do any of these steps with young people at the center. Young people represent a big part of the population. They are 2.6 billion if we consider those between 15 to 35. Especially in certain regions of the world, they are definitely that agents of change. So I invite you for this to be more than a conversation, for this whole space to be much more than that. I hope this is one more step we take together, looking ahead, looking into the future, and putting youth and also putting their mental health at the center of our actions. Thank you very much.

Can I get a little high five? All right, thank you. So thank you so much to Felipe and his team at the UN Youth Office, and also to Anne-Marie and your team at the UN Office of Partnerships, and everyone who's supporting this important topic. to be center stage. I hope we can all agree about the gravity of the importance of this topic. The statistics are really well documented. The evidence is there. And the calls for action are mounting. So as we get started, the first thing I want to do is just ground us in this moment. Because in 2 days, it's estimated a fifth of humanity will watch the men's FIFA World Cup final. And in my role at Common Goal, I get to see that not as a for its, like, commercial record-breaking benefit, but actually as the loudest unified signal that sport is providing something that humanity is craving. So our job at Common Goal is to translate that resonance into meaningful impact for young people in communities everywhere, particularly those who are most affected by global inequities. And today, we're going to dive into that. How is this work happening around the world? So you're going to hear from an incredible lineup of speakers. But as we get into that, I'm actually going to put back on my soccer coaching hat. When you coach young people, your job is to break down complex things into simple, teachable components. So you want to shoot the ball. I'm sure you all want to learn soccer, right? So you want to shoot the ball. You want to point your toe, lock your ankle, and shoot the center of the ball with your laces, right?

Right?

It's not going to work every time, but it's a place to start. And I guarantee if you do those 3 things, you'll start to get better. So here's our 3 coaching points for today, for this conversation. Care, connection, and community. If we can coach these 3 things, if we can get everyone, every team member, every person globally to contribute, we can tackle this crisis.

Thank you.

This is how teams become communities of care. And the most important team in the world right now that I'm rooting for above any other, even above this Design FC, Asociación Al-Quran Spain jersey, the team we all have to root for is young people, is the next generation to come together in support of them. So we're going to break down how do we teach care, connection, community. It starts with a willingness to be real. To look at your own story, to look around you at your people, to look truthfully at the world, and to imagine a future that we can build together. So let's get to it. This is Real People, Real Talk. And the first person I want to invite up here to talk about youth mental health is a young visionary leader who's working on just that. So I want to invite Jacque Kwebuka to join me here. We got it, we got it. Oh, we can We'll high-five after.

Yeah.

So Jacques, you are founder and executive director of an organization called Informed Future Generations, a youth-led platform that supports young people to become healthy, informed decision-makers. Tell us, just to start, like, what brought you onto the topic of mental health, and why is it so important for young people?

Thank you very much. First of all, I would just let you know that whatever we are working on within our organization was just the things we witnessed within our communities. Then as the one who was doing part-time in the general nursing, because I'm a trained nurse, then I consulted different literatures finding that there is some research done on mental health, HIV, teenage pregnancies. That's the time we started thinking, what should we do?

Okay.

But for mental health, during my second year in university, I broke up with my girlfriend. She was my first girlfriend. Now you can imagine at that age. Then after blocking out— breaking up with her, it was something which I was not really realized can happen because I was saying, now I'm close to start my career so I can get someone who will be sharing or partnering.

Yeah.

within the things I want to do in the future. Then by that time, because I have realized that hurt people hurt people, so at the end, after facing that, but also back at home, there were some conflicts in families, not within my family, but with the different relatives across the families. So, uh, no, at school I'm not comfortable, at home I'm not comfortable. During that time, I was doing a clinical placement. So I lost interest in everything, even in eating. By that time, I really suffered for almost 4 months without eating once in 3 days, just praying, going on clinical placement, doing nothing. So then I can't even approach other young people because they are judging me. Imagine a man like you who can't cry, who can't really accept or recognize that she blocked you, different things like that. So that time I started thinking to work on mental health. Then it is very, very important for young people, especially within our organization, to understand that mental health is something which is huge. What someone really has capacity to cope with, other doesn't. So you have to support each other.

Thank you so much for sharing. your journey and your story, that capacity to cope, that listening to a community about what it needs, but also connecting to your own, your own story, your own pain. So how does that, in your organization, you've been able to, you know, channel all of that into practical, you know, work that can support other young people to navigate these hardships? Like, what are some of the—

Yeah.

things that your organization is doing to support youth mental health?

From that experience, I have just realized that even during different clinical placements, especially in neuropsychiatric hospitals, I found that the majority of young people, what statistics really says or states, is really happening. I witnessed those big numbers, people who are attending for those services, the majority are young people. And we developed a program which is called No One Is Immune, because I have realized that either you are rich or poor, you are tall or short, you are healthy or not, you are a doctor, you are a nurse, whoever you are, whichever the background you have, you are not immune to any mental health issue.

Yeah.

And we don't have the same capacity. So from that time, as an organization, under that program, we have established different school-based clubs where it's just a platform just to create friends among those schools, but also trying to teach them at their early age. Because for me, if I was just aware of early signs and how to cope with, with mental health distress or issue, I should not have suffered that much. So we are trying to empower them to make informed decisions regarding their mental health, empowering them to know what is really mental health, and there are signs of mental health issues, the common mental health issues within our region, and also how can you cope with that.

Amazing.

Yeah, that mental issue you can develop anytime. So it is really working. I can't say.

Well, thank you so much for the work that you do. Thank you for kicking us off with a personal story and also practical, you know, where you've channeled that into real change. So thank you for all you're doing in your community. I'm going to actually bring up the next panel here. We can appreciate Jack. And the way we want to do this, if you all come up, make sure you high-five him on your way out. Bring them into the game. So if we want to bring up Hajar, Abu Fazl, Gilberto Silva, and Aishwarya Shrestha, if you want to join us, give them a hand. Hajar, you can sit here with me.

You want me to be—

Yeah, that's great.

Yeah.

Space for everybody. So these are 3 more people who are leading with care, connection, and community through their change-making actions in the world. So I'm going to give you my next kind of coaching point here. So another thing we do in coaching, as you know, is we demonstrate the skill that we want people to learn. So Real People, Real Talk has this incredible deck of conversation starters. It's a tool that anyone can use. And it's downloadable online in the UN as of, I think, today. So I'm actually going to use the cards to kick off this conversation with this incredible group. So, Hajar, I'm going to start with you. So you all know Hajar is the former co-captain of the Afghanistan Women's National Team. She's a senior program coordinator at the organization Soccer Without Borders, and she's the founder of the Tawana organization. Very brief on her story, after being forced to leave Afghanistan, she's dedicated her work to using sport to support refugee and immigrant youth, but especially girls and women. So, Hajar, I'm going to give you this card after. What's one thing that the world gets wrong about young people's mental health?

Hello, everybody. It's so good to be here. I think as soon as I heard the question, it's, uh, one misunderstanding is they need to be fixed. I think they don't need to be fixed. They need opportunities, opportunities to have safe space, have a good coach, understandable coach, and access to the game, to the practice. It's not about to be fixed. Because as they— I feel there— because I am working with their young refugee from— we are serving 56 countries in different cities in the United States, and I am based in Baltimore City, and I am serving like 56 refugees from around the world that are coming. And the thing we are seeing is like they already have strength. They are resilient. They have a lot of potential. Back home, they had it, but they have been forced or they had displaced here. That means what we have to do it, what they need is we have to find or discover their potential and put it in the right place.

Why?

Because I came to United States and I didn't have soccer without borders. I didn't have a coach here. Then it took a while for me to understand the system, the language, the school, the work system. Then I found my steps, then I found Shara Borders, then now I am, because I had worked in Afghanistan for many years, and I worked for a football federation. We started with a little or couple, a number of the girls in Afghanistan, but after a couple of years, we registered 5,000 girls, not only in Kabul, in 7 major cities in Afghanistan.

Wow.

Then coming here, and I had— I was lost, kind of. But now, why I'm using soccer again to— for the youth to find— talk with them and find what they need, then put them in the right position. If they want to be referee, if they want to be coach, if they want to work with elementary or middle school. I have my 2 young players in the back seat there, sitting there.

Hi.

And I am asking them to what they like to be. It's not about to where we have to put them. I think that's— then as soon as they find the right place, then they will find their potential and they will serve it back. Now, after that, they're not only receiving supporting, also they're giving back to the community what they need.

I love that. And that it's not about fixing, to bring it back thing. It's about how do we— create spaces for people to reach their potential. So I love that. You can hold on to that card.

Sure.

So Gilberto, I'd love to bring you in here. Gilberto is a World Cup-winning Brazilian footballer. He anchored Brazil's midfield in 2002, and he starred in Arsenal's undefeated Invincible season. Are there Arsenal fans here? Let's not get into that yet. And if that wasn't enough, he's a FIFA ambassador, an advocate for mental health in sports, and co-founder of Striver, which we're going to hear a bit about, which is a platform that promotes safe, hate-free fan engagement. So Gilberto, I'm going to pick up on that because it seems like every day we hear about a social media attack on athletes. There's policies emerging around the world. How do we get a handle on the digital space that's affecting young people? So your question here is, how do online activities affect how you feel? And then how could these spaces, these online spaces, be improved to promote mental health? You can give that to him so he can hold it.

Thank you. Great to be here with you guys. I really appreciate the invitation on such an important topic, which for me is It's very important. And I wish that while I was playing football, or soccer people call here, doesn't matter, I had this conscious about the importance of being healthy mentally in order to perform. But, uh, so I became passionate about it because a few years ago when I was in social media, eventually I had some issue.

I had a—

What was it? The last club I played. And later on, I have some issues with the club. And then the fans now just came in onto my social media. There was loads and loads of messages, and I had to close it, close the comments. And that moment was very strange for me because I became scared of going out home, outside my house, thinking that somebody could be there to wait for me to attack me personally. Because you don't know those people, there is no face, it's faceless.

If you bought or not.

Which is a problem. And, you know, for such a period of time, I had to live with these bad feelings. And until I overcome this, this was a bit strange for me, you know, strange word. But later on, you know, I move on and then I met my business partner, Tim Chase, which is based in England. And he came out with an idea of having a platform where we could talk to football, speak about it, the passion we have about the game, but also a safe environment where not only adults would be willing to talk about their passion, but safe of these terrible comments, racist comments, hate comments. but also for the kids. The motivation that leads him to create this project was he became a single dad by the time, a few years ago. And also his, you know, and his son was just scrolling on iPad and YouTube, etc. He made a question for himself. Is that safe for him to be there?

Hmm.

I think this question raised him to, well, he was a headhunter by the time and really made the research and there was no platform where he was comfortable for his son to be navigating. And then he decided to create the platform which today is called Striver.Football. And when he mentioned about these, you know, the safety for his son and he told me about the project, I said, wow.

Yeah.

This grabs my attention. And then I thought to myself, if it's safe for his son, it's good for mine too, even though my kids are a little bit bigger. But what if we shift this for football or athletes? Because I understand exactly how is the feeling when you lose a very important match. And now for some reason, some people come now before social media, maybe we have the journalists or the commentators, they write things about what they saw and maybe there was some criticism, which is part of it, you know, it's totally understandable. But then nowadays, social media, there is no barrier anymore. And then we create Striver just to give people, you know, this safe environment where we can talk about football, we can enjoy. It doesn't matter if you lose or if you win, but we are safe there. Why is that? Because we have the technology that blocks these hate comments, the racist comments. And that's why we have been working so hard on it to make where our kids can navigate and be in a safe environment. Then come back to his kids, he's enjoying talking about football because sometimes it's not only about text message. I speak to them face-to-face. I respond their message by video, which is something. And back to the athletes, you know, it's a very important topic. I felt that we— when I was playing, there was some piece missing from this puzzle. How can you perform properly and play a final in the World Cup, as you're going to experience in a couple of days, if you're mind is not properly healthy, you know. I think this is a very important thing that we are talking about and we have to work on regarding that to protect ourselves but also to help others. And when we talk about Striver, it's not about me, it's not about you, it's not about her, it's about us. And once we join the force together, give our hand to each other and raise our voice and—

But I—

Sometimes it's a hard battle, but if you work together, we can win this battle.

Wow.

So we hear about care for young people, we hear about connection, but only if that connection is safe, if there's boundaries to, you know, it's not a connection to insult, to, to be violent with your words anonymously. So we've got care, we've got connection. I want to bring Aishwarya here. I know we're going to talk some community. You're a social worker and researcher building community-led systems of justice and care, co-founder of The Heart of Nepal, which focuses on community-led ecological development.

Woo!

Antardhoni? Antardhoni? That's a Nepali word. Okay. A nonprofit providing free mental health care across Nepal. So her work challenges top-down development, trying to advance decolonial, survivor-led, and community-driven models of change from the ground up. So you're doing so much to build this model of community. So your question is, what would it mean for your community to truly have a culture of care? What does this look like in practice? Really?

Culture of care. So I think the first image that I have in mind when I hear culture of care, culture of care is care being the norm, right? Anyone, regardless of their socioeconomic status, their sexual orientation, their gender, their caste, their appearance, anything can ask for care. And that's the norm. That's normal to get care. People expect care and people can ask health for care. And then I actually have seen this happen. So I come from Nepal, and Nepali culture is all about care. We care for one another. If you've been to Nepal, you would see how people are big on helping. We are taught from a very young age to help one another.

There is—

the social cohesion there is extremely tight. Even in festivals, for big occasions, we have relatives coming over, we have families coming over. We are taught to be tight-knit. But then as a social worker, I've worked for about more than a decade now as a social worker, I've really seen that care also requires a lot of other things. Like care requires infrastructure, care requires emotional bandwidth. If I myself am not happy with my life, I'm not able to care for someone else. So I've seen that happen so many times in Nepal that We want to help one another, but then we cannot because of our own circumstances. So I'm the co-founder of an organization called Heart of Nepal, where we work with Dalit and indigenous women and girls in Nepal. So if you're not familiar with this, we have this caste structure. Even though we have social cohesion, but then these are other factors like caste-based discrimination where some people are not even treated as humans. Their water is considered impure, their shadow even is considered impure. So that still exists in Nepal till this date. So we're working with women and girls of this community to ask them what they want in their community. We're working for child education, for livelihood generation, but even then the domestic violence rate is so high. Children get married at 14, 15. They give birth around, you know, very young age. And then it's a belief that once you have 2 children, the goal of your life is fulfilled. You're done. That's why people themselves, the children themselves consent to get married early and then get children early. And we did this legal literacy training there because women wanted a cure of domestic violence. And when this heavily pregnant woman was walking out of the training, she saw that her slipper was not there outside the room, and she literally bawled her eyes out. She was shouting that the slippers had cost her 150 rupees, which is even less than a dollar. And she said that while crying that her husband had left her for another woman. And she had nowhere else to go. Her maternal family would not accept her back. She was financially dependent on the man, so she could not go anywhere. And the rest of the women, they wanted to support her, but they could not because they themselves did not have the financial means to do so. They could be there for a moment, but then that was it. So even to care requires infrastructures. That would be that, yeah.

No, and we're talking about youth mental health, right? And there's a piece that is so personal and individual in your own story, and there's a piece that is about your support system and social cohesion and what are the systems and nowadays in this connected world, there's also a piece of the world that we live in kind of entering your mind and affecting, and affecting you. So you're each talking about experiences from different parts of the world, different ways that you've connected with this, and yet there's so much synergy. So with, with kind of one, one wrap-up each, I would love to hear if there's something from someone else's story that resonated with you.

Yeah.

So what did you hear in one of their 2 stories that reminded you of something in your own story that you would want to share with us?

Oh, both of the stories resonate to me very much. I want to go first about the care. We are from Afghanistan, which is, like, so close to Nepal than United States. And we have so much of what she shared is common with us. We are growing up, raising as a family, as a community, to sharing like the food with each other, celebrate together. It's kind of not living individually, and we are living as a group. It was so reflecting and reminding me a lot of good stuff about Afghanistan. But here, that's why in Sakura Borders, we are using the same, that we build a safe community for our youth, like, who are coming from Nepal, Bangladesh, from South America, from South Asia, from any part of the world, they're coming to providing a safe space for them through soccer or through sport, that when they come here, they don't feel isolated because English is hard. They don't feel excluded because they don't have friends or family or anybody to care about them. Then we intentionally create the programs to They feel safe. They feel belong. They be heard. That's all we do in the Sakura Borders is like all year long we have program is not only winter or spring season. It's all year long, and they always are with us in the field or in the community building to taking them to around the city or around the state to they understand what is around them. Like the knowledge about sort around you is very important. When you know, then you can take actions and you make a lot of decisions. Back to come to the social media, when I was in Afghanistan around 2007 to 2015, we worked hardly and we used the social media. And through social media, we increased the number of girls in Afghanistan Football Federation. If we didn't have access to the media and social media, we couldn't increase the numbers. I know that now it's because it is huge and it's like—

It's a big deal.

A little out of our limit, kindish, but it's like kind of like so freedom. But I had very good experience of social media in a positive way that I could talk with each players from any city in any community. They reach out to me because I was always sharing my stuff or activities, the tournament, the festival, the leagues. To this is happening at this part of Kabul. It's happening in part. of this part of the city, then who were around and they were reaching out like, I have a girl, they want to participate. I have a nephew, they want to like participate. Kind of social media become a core for us to have a connection with other girls to come together. And that's like a big achievement for us. And I hope it will— what you're doing, it's amazing to have a safe space.

Yeah.

Not only in In person and also in the social media.

So anything can be— an unsafe space could also be changed into a safe space. So I know we're running out of time here, but I want to make sure that you each have a chance to kind of give us some closing nuggets. So I'll give you 2 options, either something that resonated just in 30 seconds, a minute, or if you want to give advice, we're here at the UN in the Goals Lounge. What's something that you want people to know from your work to take away? So Gilberto, I'll go to you.

Well, it's great to hear the stories of, you know, when living— doesn't matter if you are in a big city or in a small village, because I come from a very small village where everyone has to work together to support each other. Even though the financial condition was tough, but being there to help somebody was something very essential for us. And using football as a platform of education to help kids and adults also on the mental side is important. And for us, this is part of our core business on Striva. And because when I talk about safe space, you know, in the online platforms, on engagement platform as we do, why we say that? Because we can moderate the conversation and stop it before it goes live, because as long the comment goes live, the damage is there. And it's important where the world as it is, everything is fast. And sometimes we don't have time to think of what is the next action or when we have to calm down because everything is pushing us to be faster.

Yeah.

Is that right? Is that right for us? Is that right for our kids? Is that right for our environment? But despite the fact of the world is as it is, let's think about how can we, despite the world, take a moment for ourselves and support each other. And in my case, as a sports person, use football to support each other.

Thank you.

All right. I got you.

We had this panel earlier where someone said that every story is a mental health story because everyone has mental health all the time. And then in the UN Youth Office brochure that we all got in our backpack, there was this line that said mental health should not be treated as a symptom, but it should be treated as a system. So I think both say the same thing, that mental health is not just mental health isolation. In order to care for mental well-being, we need to care for all these other systems, all these other aspects. that definitely affect mental well-being and mental health of every single person.

Beautifully said. So thank you so much. We've heard stories— care, connection, community— and also bringing back what Jacques said about no one is immune, right? And we can, we can work towards prevention. We can work towards this interconnectedness of systems, which is going to be a theme in our next panel, thinking about how the interconnection between mental health, and housing systems, economic systems, climate. So we're going to hear from that. But I want to give one more round of applause here to this panel altogether. Thank you so much. It's great to see you. You can get your high fives on the way out. And come on— oh, the cards, do you want to keep them?

You can.

They're yours. They're yours to spark a conversation. So we're actually going to— before we invite up the next panel, We're going to have a short video here that we can, we can all take a look at.

I'll get out of the way. We are currently in Warrem Park where we are hosting our monthly support group, which is a part of our sport and mental health initiative. When I was in university doing my undergrad, I learnt of deaths by suicide of fellow peers. Unfortunately, there weren't any resources, tools, or support for tertiary students. Till today, it's still a struggle. I saw the gap, I saw the need, and as a young person, I realized that we needed youth-driven solutions for youth mental health challenges. I decided to be a Young Leader for the Sustainable Development Goals in order to continuously champion mental health, not only for young people in Zimbabwe but across the globe as well. It is my hope that during this 2-year tenure, I'm able to ensure that every space has locally and culturally relevant tools and no one is held back by their mental health challenges and young people are able to live and thrive and be the best versions of themselves.

All right, they're on their way up here. So now I'm, I'm going to be joined here by Pops Mensah-Sansu. Daniel Amokachi, he said to say it with enthusiasm and passion. And Panya Tang. So thank you so much to the 3 of you. They're gonna help us see this intersectional nature. Actually, if you go on the UN Youth Affairs website around the mental health topic, you'll actually see this incredible visual that maps how sport, housing, climate, Peace, justice, all of these things are so intersectional and reliant on one another, as we've already heard here today. So Pops, I'm going to start with you. And you know the drill now. You've got these conversation starters. The first panel modeled it super well. So Pops is a British-Ghanaian former NBA player, if you couldn't tell from the height, a basketball executive and president of SEED Academy in Ghana. He competed in the 2012 London Olympics and is now an Adapt2Win champion, which we're gonna hear about, where he advocates for stronger climate adaptation solutions. So thinking about climate action makes me think of the world. So we've got this Your World card here. And the first question is kind of, how has climate change ever made you feel anxious or hopeless or overwhelmed, and how so?

Thank you. Um, wow. I didn't, you know, as a former professional athlete, I didn't realize that climate change was a thing in regards to me personally. You know, I recycled, uh, you know, I separated my paper, my, my paper goods from my plastic, so I thought I was doing my part, but I was apathetic to, um, climate change and its impact on the world. And it didn't dawn on me until I was running my academy in Ghana, Seed Academy Ghana. As you said, we, we use the game of basketball to empower and impact Ghana's youth on and off the court. Off the court, we provide them with character development tools, life skills training, community service, capacity building, because we believe that talent is in abundance everywhere, but access to resources and opportunities is not. And so for me, we were doing one of our camps in Ghana. Now, a little insight to what Ghana is like. There's no indoor basketball facilities in all of Ghana. I think there's maybe one or two, but if we have them, we don't have access to them. And so everything we do is outside. Anybody that's been to Ghana or West Africa, as you know, Daniel, it's extremely hot. Extremely, extremely hot.

Yeah.

To the point that one day we were having a camp and I was standing on the court and my shoes melted completely in half. And, you know, it wasn't that big of a deal to me because I was just going to go back home and switch. But what was mortifying, what broke my heart, was that the kids in these camps, they play in these conditions every single day and they have one pair of shoes.

Wow.

And so for me, and then on the flip side, we were having another camp and it rained for 5 hours straight. For 5 hours straight. Now luckily, luckily, because of the extreme heat, as soon as the rain was done, it dried up. But that, from that very moment, I realized I had to tackle climate change in order to be able to even play the game of basketball, use the game of basketball as a tool to help Ghana's youth. So when I saw that, that's when my initial anxiety about climate change— and it really dawned on me that I needed to be focusing on climate change until we can start building the infrastructure to allow these kids in Ghana to play the game, um, on a level playing field like the rest of the world.

Wow.

Thanks so much for sharing your story. So you've already kind of brought Daniel here into the conversation. Daniel is a Nigerian and African football legend. We have another one. I guess that's the seed of the football legends here. He's a former Olympian, a global sports ambassador. He helped Nigeria win the 1994 African Cup of Nations, and he won a gold medal—

Yes.

A gold medal in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. So with that kind of success on the pitch, I imagine you had a lot of people around you supporting you along the way. So we're gonna, we're gonna pull a Your People card here, Your Story card here, to share a little bit from your story about advice that stuck with you and has carried you into this career, which you can tell us a little bit about as well.

Okay. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, all. Well, mental health is real. There's no doubt about it. The generation where I came from, do we know what mental health is? Definitely not.

Hmm.

Do we have the support that the generation are getting now? Definitely not. Let me, let me give you, let me tell you a story. 1994, after the World Cup. The World Cup was right here in the USA. We had a wonderful tournament. I scored 2 sexy goals.

I watched you on TV.

You know, and after the World Cup, I was signed by Everton. For £3 million then, the most expensive player coming out of Africa. And Everton signed me as the first black player to play for Everton. And that's where all the hurdles came in. I got into the club, I was the most highest paid player for Everton, a black man from Africa on the street of Kaduna. My first game, I had a decent game. My second game, I scored. Then it became a flop.

Hmm.

Went 9 straight games, like I didn't even know what was happening. Then you can, you start hearing whispers. You're a sportsman, you know how it is. Whispers in the locker room, you know, ah, he's a flop, how can, you know, and And stuff like that. And, you know, it's not just, you know, from my teammates. When I moved to Everton— that's Everton, it's in Liverpool— I was staying in a hotel. One morning I came out of the hotel to go for training and my car was scratched. You know, a long scratch, and then a letter was left on the screen. You know, you were I'm not going to go into those words. Go back where you're coming from. You know, and that's when the doubt came in. You know, am I really, you know, that good? You know, it came flipping left, right. What is happening? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I, you know, the good thing about it, the change is when you have, you know, people that believe in who you are and are ready to help you come out of it. You know, how important this summit is, I think I brought the whole African village with me. Where are they, my family? That's how important this is for me to move forward. Uh, I went through like practically the whole season without playing, and, uh, game training after training, game after game, I was on the bench. I wasn't being selected. And, and then we found the self-belief, you know. They, you know, friends from Liverpool, my family from home, you know, what do you mean? Why are you doubting yourself? You know, you forgot that just a few months ago you were the The most expensive player. You are the most expensive player at this club. You know, if you don't watch it, you ain't gonna be here. Then the belief started coming in. And then I started seeing signs on the training ground. And it was the FA Cup semi-finals in Elland Road, Everton-Spurs. And I was on the bench. I was selected. Luckily, I was selected.

Wow.

And the poor right out, he's a striker and he got injured in the second half. And then the doctor went in and then the boss who has so much belief in the player that was injured told him, give him another 5 minutes. And I was already warming up. And then I'm watching and then he went, game started, he went down again. Give him another 5 minutes. And I ran and I came to the bench. And I told the assistant coach that the gaffer said write me in. The gaffer never told me that. And he ain't gonna ask him. Yeah, and then he wrote me in and I went to the 4th assistant and I gave him.

He wrote it in.

Put yourself in the game.

When Paul Radat went down again, he took him out, he ran, give him 5 minutes. I was already on the field.

That sounds like the opposite of self-doubt.

Yeah, I was already on the field, you know, and, you know, 10 minutes later I scored a goal.

There you go, you're back.

5 minutes later I had another goal, and we ended up winning the game 4-1, you know. The governor went to the press conference and then he told them that he, today's game, he made the best substitution that he never made. No, no, no, that he never made. The best substitution he never made. And then he came into the locker room and he grabbed me. He said some nasty stuff, but don't try that again. And I said, cool, I'm cool with that. And the next game I started. I scored another brace.

Wow.

Another game came, I scored another brace, and that's where the self-belief. So all the moral of the story is self-belief. You should be exposed to support from people. Family and friends should be aware the environment and see that someone needs help, and then we'll succeed. Mental health is real. Do I know that it was mental health back then? Definitely not. You know, but when we get exposed to your generation, it starts cropping in. You know, you can Google it, you will see it. And then you holla at me and let me know. Thank you.

Yeah, we're starting to put words, right? So mental health is a very also broad topic and putting words like self-doubt is, is a, is something that can create harm inside yourself and limit potential. The self-belief that comes from a community of care believing in you until you can believe in yourself.

That's right.

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. So Panya, you are a Cambodian storyteller and co-founder of Sampeh TV and 606 Digital, platforms that tell honest, character-driven stories. about identity, gender, community. So I understand your work explores how creativity and conversation, like the ones we're having here today, real talk, can create a more inclusive society. So in some ways, I'm like, you should be sitting in this chair hosting the conversation, because your work is about imagining a different future. So I pulled a Your Future card here. And it says, what would you tell your younger self— you don't seem that old to me—

Thank you.

But your younger self about getting through hard times? And what would you— what have you learned that you'll kind of carry with you from this journey into the future? I'm going to pass that to her.

Thank you so much for the question. Actually, these questions, I think a lot of us can actually reflect with me a bit. Actually, when I was young, I struggled a lot with mental health. I was listening to the story about expectations and self-doubt. As a young woman, as a young girl, In Cambodia, I had a lot of expectations from my family, my society. And not only that, I know from a very young age that I was a part of the LGBTQI+ community, which I have to keep hidden. In fact, when I was 16, my parents think that I might be gay, so they forced me into an arranged marriage. I tried to delay it by going to university, finish bachelor degree, and then at the end end up getting engaged by the age of 19. After engagement, I saw that I had no choice, so I packed my bag and I just left home without any money. So I was under a lot of mental pressure. I went to a couple of, like, to friends, like connection all around, and then end up working in Myanmar for about 2 years, finding myself again. I think a lot of young people like myself, I can see like young people here having a lot of expectation on yourself and having expectation placed on yourself. So if I can go back in time and then look at my younger self, I would give her a hug. and tell her that it's okay. Because back then I feel a lot of guilt. Because even though I left home, I feel that— because you were taught from a very young age to follow your family, to get married, to have kids, to do this and do that so that your family can be proud of you. But then I feel that I'm so selfish. So I want to tell her that it's okay, you are not selfish. Just because you want to have a life of your own and you want to live honestly. And I want to tell her that you will be all right, you will be fine, you will reconcile with your family, you will get back, everything will be okay. As long as, even though you don't see, because back then I don't see, I don't even know what tomorrow will bring.

Right.

what my future would be, but just keep going.

That resonates so much, and I want to give you a hug, but we're far apart, so maybe after. Let me hug you.

Can I speak on something?

Yes, please do.

To Daniel's point, I'm Ghanaian, like you said, but I was born and raised in London, and I'm a Spurs fan. I was born in Tottenham, but I remember this game vividly, you know, and I remember Daniel signing in Everton. And even though he's Nigerian and I'm Ghanaian, he was an African man. He was a Black man that represented us. So hearing this 30 years later, that every game he played, he had a mental struggle, He was struggling with his mental health. But us as young African kids were looking at him as an inspiration. And I remember him subbing himself into the game. I was like, this guy is absolutely crazy.

But—

and he scores those 2 goals and looks at the manager like— that shows that deep inside he had that self-confidence. And he had that— and I had gone through something similar when I became a professional athlete. And I had to find a way to overcome and figure it out. and hearing somebody else playing a totally different sport at a different time. And like you said, being an African man, mental health is taboo, especially in a young age. So that's why when I heard about, you know, what Adapt2Win was doing, climate change and focusing on mental health with the youth, I had to jump at the opportunity. 'Cause I remember those moments when I was— sorry, Gilberto, I'm a Tottenham fan, but even though they destroy us every time. But, uh, I realized that, you know, that we needed to highlight and amplify this issue because I isolated myself when I was struggling, and it wasn't healthy at all. So, you know, knowing that you had a cohort, you have a family here, and you had your family around you to support you is great. And I think that's, that's, that's something we should take with us, that support system that we put around the youth as we continue to build on this mental health.

And I think, I think Pops modeled it perfectly. Like, is there something from what somebody else said that resonated with one of you that you would want to share to kind of close us out?

Actually, I like, I just want to like let the people know what the Daniel Nwokachi EduPlus Foundation is all about. It's a foundation that focuses on the 4 of the SDG goals. Number 2, which is zero hunger. Number 3, well-being. Number 4, quality education. And number 16, peace and justice. And it's very important again to let you all know that how you deal about mental health where I come from is different how you're going to deal with it in America and Europe. Because in Africa, you know, you see kids on, you know, on the streets who are hungry. You see parents who cannot feed their kids. You know, you see, you know, young kids who are vulnerable to insurgency where if they get recruited, you know, they get what they don't get at home. You know, and that's why the foundation, you know, uses sports. When I say sports, sports, basketball, and the table tennis. We focus on 3 sports where, you know, the youth in Nigeria really love. And we have, you know, we're partnering with the Ministry of Education back home where we use all the schools and we open door where, you know, we feed kids breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When they come in, you know, they have, you know, trainers, they have soccer balls. You know, one thing about you, a soccer player, you know that a ball is like a beautiful woman. When you keep it there, you want to say, what's up? That's just the truth of it. The best friend. Basketball, you know, when you walk in here, you see a basketball, you want to feel it, you want to touch it. Forgive me, but that's just the truth of it. So those young guys now walk into those those schools, they know that they're going to have 3 square meals a day. They know that they're going to have— they're going to be trained on the field. They know that there are balls on the court where they can jump, you know, throw some hoops. They know there are table tennis where they can play. So now they know that when they wake up the next day, they know they're coming right there.

It's care in action is what it sounds like.

They're not going to go anywhere else. So we're using the foundation to, you know, lure them in, you know, give them that quality education we're talking about, feed their belly, which is zero hunger.

Yeah.

You know, keeping them away from the vulnerability of the insurgency, like I said earlier, and then we move in. But it's very, very important. It's a self-sponsored foundation from me and my family, and we've gotten to a stage where, you know, we said, no, you know, we can't do it alone. You know, we need the corporate and social, you know, bodies to like join in and, you know, join the queue and let's fight it together because it's a platform that you cannot win that fight alone.

100%.

And you cannot win it in a hall. You got to be on the field. The way we can go on the field and defeat it on the field and defeat it on the field is we got to have a march and go out and go and do it.

Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you for the work you're doing. So, Panya, I'd love to give you the last word. And, you know, he's pointed out that these things are interconnected. We're here at the UN. What do you want to share that you want people to take away?

I think I just want to— like, I feel very connected. I think these cards are very powerful because just like you said, we should be defeating it on the field. I think the healing process starts with care. Care about yourself, care about your family, care about each other. And then the community, because healing alone, lock yourself in the room alone or isolate yourself, will not— you need your community, you need connections, you need meaningful connections. And I think we are all here today. Let's make meaningful connections. Let's be a community that supports and fights against mental health. And let's just remove all self-doubts and then put ourselves as a substitute.

So I just want to I just wanna acknowledge all 7 speakers that have shared their stories bravely, right? Like, real talk is also really brave to share something that maybe somebody didn't know was happening behind the scenes, that is a story of guilt or of shame, of overcoming something that you don't often talk about, 'cause we're not taught to talk about it, right? Mental health, we don't, we're not.

Yeah.

taught what words to use, how to break it down. You know, just having these conversation starters, it's a place to start. How do we bring care, connection, community? How do we have these conversations? And obviously you're all very exceptional people, as was the panels before and Jacques. But when, when we get just under the surface, you start to see what you can't see just from meeting somebody, what you can't see on their social media, and So I want to both appreciate how brave everybody has been in sharing, you know, deeper parts of your stories with us, and also I want to invite everybody to start those conversations, to start somewhere. These cards are a tool to help try to make that easier, but really the theme throughout all of this is that we're not going to be able to address this highly interconnected, complex thing that is personal, deeply personal, but also so unless we start somewhere. And so I hope what you take away is the themes of care and community and connection, and also that we have to start somewhere. And you already did that by showing up today and listening to this conversation. So just want to appreciate all of you for being here. Thank you for your time, and I hope you really enjoy the rest of the conversation for the rest of the day.

Thank you.

Thank you all so much. Pops, that was really wonderful. Thank you.

Thank you.