14-year-old Sako Vodivodi is trying to bring attention to mental health one step at a time.
This morning, accompanied by his cousins the Year-8 International School Suva student walked over 11 kilometres in two hours to raise funds for mattresses at the St Giles Hospital.
Vodivodi and his cousins started off from the Suva Bowling Club at 6am walking along Queen Elizabeth Drive, up Laucala Bay Road to Flagstaff before heading back to their starting point.
The 14-year-old says he visited the facility a few months ago to visit the staff and got a tour, and again yesterday to inform them of what he is doing today.
He says there is no awareness for people living with mental health in the community and the drug problem is just making it worse.
The Year 8 student says he has a really good support system from family and friends here in Fiji, Dubai, the United States, and New Zealand.
His mother, Vitalina Nabola says when her son raised the issue with her she was pretty emotional, because she related it to the issues happening with our youths of today and the effects of drugs in our society.
Nabola say for Sako this is just the beginning, identifying this issue at Saint Giles Hospital and looking deeper into it.
She says Sako went to meet the staff at Saint Giles about the beds they’re using and it was not the what he thought it would be, adding this is good because he is problem solving along the way.
Nabola says the next phase is to get the public involved in supporting the cause at Saint Giles.
She says she is grateful to International School Suva as this is part of their curriculum to do community service and he is just one of the many Year 8 students doing projects like this.
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