Mental Health - Youth Activist & 2022 Australia Day Young Citizen of the Year Rhea Werner (Australia) & Eunoia Ambassador Sama Hesham (Egypt) - Eunoia Global Health Podcast Episode 5

In this episode, Rhea joins Sama in discussing her extraordinary work in mental health youth-led legislation in Australia and policy translation with the Harvard STRIPED Initiative. Rhea is a half-Indian, half-German high school student with a passion for creating tangible social impact through highlighting and promoting interdisciplinary approaches, especially in the field of mental health. She currently leads the Australian Policy translation at the Harvard STRIPED Initiative, based at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Body Confident Youth Initiative. In this position, she has led a team of 15+ young Australians and has pioneered community projects supporting mental health and body image by receiving a $50,000 grant from the federal Australian Government, impacting over 2000+ young people. She has played an integral role in successfully implementing legislation, lobbying the Victorian Government to provide $16.5 million dollars towards E-Waste legislation. Moreover, as an Australian Future Leader in Mental Health, Rhea presented at the Mental Health Foundation Australia’s annual mental health summit for 600+ people. Currently, she is helping co-design mental health and wellbeing technologies suitable for people of CALD background with the University of Sydney and is developing an eating disorders educational module for adolescents in collaboration with the Columbia University Valegos College of Physicians. For her community initiatives, she was recently awarded the 2022 Australia Day Young Citizen of the Year. She hopes to continue to empower interdisciplinary approaches to solve public health issues in the future, by bridging geographical and socioeconomic inequities exacerbated by pertinent global issues.