Right before the pandemic hit one of the big conversations in higher education was that there was an epidemic on college campuses and the epidemic was loneliness and loneliness is this situation where particularly College age guys are going to campus and a lot of them are spending time in their dorm
Room not going out and meeting people there’s an increasing number of organizations that are focusing on men’s mental health when you compare the amount of services available for young men to any other demographic in the population there’s just not as many services available part of that is because historically men have been told
Don’t show your emotions and you know that’s not a manly thing to do and uh you know you got to be more masculine than that what’s interesting to me is when you think about the epidemic of loneliness we have a solution to it we’re the solution Sigma Pi fraternity
Fraternity and Saria life we’re the ones who can bring people together in ways that they’ve never been brought together before suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US and notably the second leading cause of death among people aged 10 to 34 unfortunately we know the impact that mental health can
Have on someone when we lost our director of chapter Services Sunny Age We want to make sure that all of our members understand that it’s okay to not be okay and that you are not alone sigal Pai has made and will continue to make investments into the Education and
Training of our members and spreading awareness for them and their mental health everyone deals with mental health in their own way my way of dealing with it is just having people around me and so I think like being in a fraternity just makes that really easy I tell the
Potentional new members I tell them yeah like this is basically what’s going to happen is you’re going to sign your bid and then you get like 70 automatic best friends you have these people here who you can depend on when I look back on some of the struggles that I personally
Had had with mental health it was a tough journey and I can tell you affirmatively there were many occasions where if it were not for my fraternity Brothers I don’t know if I’d be here we build such stronger bonds as brothers than just conventional friends that you
Have for the four years that you’re here I mean these are bonds that are lasting for decades to come being in a fraternity we all are part of this organization that’s bigger than just one person and so I know that I always have my brother behind me to always be there
For me to be that Foundation that I can fall back on that I can stand on and rebuild myself too well it’s important for the fraternity because it’s one of the major issues that college age men are dealing with today there’s a mental health crisis that doesn’t take place just on
One campus or in one part of the country it takes place on every campus it’s important for the fraternity because this is what our members deal with in their personal lives so it’s important important for the fraternity to invest in mental health programming because this is the world that our
Undergraduates live in if you have a brother at your chapter that needs some help or that you suspect needs to talk to somebody be the person that they talk to and I think that when our chapter uh members begin to be the solution that’s the biggest gain we can make in mental
Health awareness when our guys know that they can even in a very small measure be part of the solution for the future bonds of Brotherhood is a campaign of Sigma Pi fraternity there are going to be three ways that we really key in on maximizing what this
Campaign is the first is going to be awareness so Sigma Pi being able to Target different times or different periods throughout the year where we’re really able to have a concentrated conversation surrounding mental health second we have our programming when it comes to our programming we’re going to
Be providing members with things like the bonds of Brotherhood companion guide we have uh mental health handout cards for our members across the country as well and lastly fundraising so we’re going ahead and we’re doing the awareness aspect we’re doing the programming making sure that we’re actually able to have the conversations
But then being able to actually provide the funds for a campaign such as this one for the bonds of Brotherhood campaign to really be successful if the program is able to assist you know even just one member uh let them know that they’re not alone in this conversation in you know these unforeseen
Circumstances and situations that we all face on a day-to-day basis then this program has been successful you can learn more at signal.org mentalhealth
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