Cellona, Lencelee MWF 11:05am-12:05pm

Gumaua, Harel Myles Lim March 1, 2019

Josol, Charice

Mercado, Cherry Nicole

Peñero, Johannes Dane

Leduna, Elaine Ruth

Topic: Mental Health: Depression

#LOVEanLang

#LOVEanLang is inspired by a common expression of encouragement “Laban lang” from

the Bisaya-Cebuano language that means "Keep on Fighting". Filipinos used this catchphrase to

motivate other people. It was first started by LGBTQ community specially gays. They used this

expression to sympathize with people who are struggling with issues and problems in their lives,

and as they try to boost the mood and give positive attribute to a person, this catchphrase is uttered

and used repetitively.

Students deal with stress in many ways, such as escaping through work, school, and

family, National Institution of Mental Health says. Our campaign #LOVEanLang aims to raise

students’ mental health awareness. It includes emotional, psychological and social well- being.

Associated with mental health are different problems that affect how students think, feel and act.

In fact, depression is one of the highlighted mental health problems causes people to experience

low mood, loss of interest, feelings of guilt, low self-worth, disturbed sleep or appetite, low energy,

and poor concentration. However, its symptoms may vary among people but generally encompass

a feeling of sadness or hopelessness.

Key Objectives

1. Raise mental health awareness among college students and promote prevention of

mental health instability through campaign’s encouragement strategies.

2. Ensure that all the possible reasons why these students are depressed are included in

the campaign to provide an enhanced solution to their problems.

3. Identify key areas where support system of Ateneo de Davao University which can be

improved and influence policymakers to increase the preventive measures against

instability of mental health.

The aim of the campaign is to help students who are struggling to uplift their mood and their self-

esteem. These are projected to be achieved through encouragement strategies that will be

implemented for the students to feel love and be full of hope. Furthermore, the campaign aims to

reassure university students that they are not alone in facing the challenges in life and that someone

believes in their potentials and capabilities. Through the propagation of awareness, prevention and

encouragement, the students will be able to connect and unite by encouraging one another both

online and offline.

Target Audience

Mental health crisis can cut across all professions and ages. This will be a heavy burden in

2030 as the World Health Organization predicted. This illness has a large scope of victims and

most of them were people of late adolescence (15-18 years old) and emerging adults (ages 18-

24). People of these age were most likely students hence, we can say that mental health issues

are very common among students today. In fact, in a mental health research was conducted by

the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the following were the results:
  One in four students have a diagnosable illness

 40% do not seek help

 80% feel overwhelmed by their responsibilities

 50% have become so anxious that they struggled in school

The result of that research drives our group to campaign and to spread mental health awareness

to all the students especially to the students of our institution, the Ateneo de Davao University.

This is inclusive to all university students enrolled students specifically in the Jacinto campus

regardless of gender, social status, religion and political views.

Message/Idea

As the campaign focuses on depression, we aim to spread the awareness between the

difference of clinical depression and being depressed by adjustment in handling the normal stress

in life. Most of the time people feel sad and unhappy. It is normal expression in loss or life struggles

yet not all these circumstances can be diagnosed and qualify as clinical depression. According to

the DMS-5, a manual doctor can only diagnose a patient with depression when symptoms exist

like, feel tired or have lack of energy almost every day, feel worthless or guilty, have hard time

focusing, remembering details and making decision in life, can't sleep during night, thinks often

about death or suicide, feel selfless or slow downed, and lastly lost or gained weight. All of these

are some of the symptoms of depression. There are two kinds of depression, the clinical depression

and situational depression. Both are similar but not the same. Situational depression is known

medically as adjustment disorder of person with depressed mood, it often resolves in time and

talking about the usual problem can recover the patient. On the other hand, clinical depression also

called as “major depression disorder”, can be developed if the patient did not recover and this is
considered as a mental health condition. Situational depression is a short-term depression that can

be solved when someone motivate or talk to a person who experience this kind of problem, it may

cause in some traumatic event and changes in a person life. According to Legg(2018) situational

depression stems from struggle to come in terms with dramatic or emotional changes of a person.

For instance, following the death of a parent or love ones, may take a while before the person

accepts it and no longer stressed or worried about it. Until acceptance and letting go of what

happened, they have a higher tendency to undergo situational depression and if not dealt, it can

lead to clinical depression. Most university students experience situational depression for they

encounter a lot of new adjustments, including lifestyle, friends, atmosphere, roommates, exposed

to new activities that is not usual in junior years. Students have the tendency to have difficulties in

handling these new things. If the student can’t cope up with such changes, he or she is susceptible

to situational depression and if this level is not conquered it will lead to major depression or clinical

depression.

Depression can be cured with care and treatment. Our mission is to help and motivate

people or student who experience anxiety, or situational depression. As a college student, we are

all busy but if you experience this kind of situation please bare a small amount of time to seek

for help. Buchanan, J. L. (2012) Effective treatments for depression include talk therapy (also

called psychotherapy), personalized for your situation, or a combination of talk therapy and

medication. Early treatment is best. Therefore, we tend to campaign #LoveAnLang to boost and

give motivation to our fellow college students here in Ateneo De Davao University

Media to be Used

As a result of the highly connected and digital world in our society, social media is seen

one of the effective and efficient way to communicate and disseminate information to influence
our target audiences. For our campaign’s challenge #LOVEanLang, social networking sites such

as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. will serve as our primary communication tool as these sites

are intuitive platforms for the audience. There are encouragement strategies proposed as medium

to propagate awareness and influence the audience. First, the campaign asks the challenger (student

1) to record himself/herself while surprisingly hugging the challenge (student 2) and motivating

the later by uttering a motivational quote. Afterwards, the challenger will post it to their social

media with the caption #LOVEanlang and the motivational quote and nominate others to

participate including the challenge. This challenge aspires to motivate individuals specially those

who are in a constant battle against depression. Second, prominent people to spread simple kind

words that will surely leave a mark in their minds. This won't be possible without the strong

connection towards the prominent ones as well. Cooperation with the most famous personalities

should be a habit in order to easily disseminate information to the public. This will truly be helpful

for some teenagers especially those people who are introvert or shy to share their problem with

their friends. In our own little ways, we can still lend a helping hand at least. Lastly, there will be

an online Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram account that will be created to persuade students

to share their stories anonymously for the readers to know they are not struggling alone.

Furthermore, videos and quotes will also be posted and publicly subject to sharing to increase

information dissemination.

Due to chosen media of information dissemination, the campaign needs no budget because

of cost-free method.
References:

The College Student Mental Health Crisis. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201402/the-college-student-

mental-health-crisis

Tomacruz, S. (n.d.). Is the Philippines ready to address mental health? Retrieved from

https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/211679-philippines-readiness-address-

mental-health?fbclid=IwAR3H13jssDZzLe118gULdhiwldDe-

2s_i0l7ueUfosQMnaCMoNIBN1q9oFc

What Is Mental Health? (2017, April 29). Retrieved March 1, 2019, from

https://www.mentalhealth.gov/basics/what-is-mental-

health?fbclid=IwAR0TfOBtrotOyDOlHCR5YUEImGjJnn_ZKHfTFH5jScKO0v78CUBlZ

ZWeoMo

Writers, S. (2018, May 16). Top 5 Mental Health Challenges Facing College Students. Retrieved

from https://www.bestcolleges.com/resources/top-5-mental-health-problems-facing-

college-students/