MANHATTAN, Kan. (WIBW) – A Kansas State University fraternity is trying to raise awareness surrounding men’s mental health.
Aacaia Fraternity is partnering with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to bring awareness to mental health and end the stigma. Fraternity President Blake Gamber noticed when he started college that mental health was a big thing.
“Mental health was something a lot of guys said that they would love to be able to just take that a step further because a lot of the guys now are passionate about that topic and so kind of just over the years that I’ve been here I can just tell that these guys are not afraid to talk about it and they want to be able to share that with more people,” said Gamber.
Gamber mentioned experiencing a lack of resources available for men’s mental health and wanting to start there.
“The main thing we want to start with was our house first we kind of wanted to be able to help each other and stand on our own before we could even think about helping other people and I think we’ve kind of learned also throughout the process you know that it’s a lot of small steps its a lot of how can we help us ok how can we help maybe the greater greek community now what can we do with K-State,” said Gamber.
The fraternity’s objective is to help get men’s mental health advocacy to be prevalent within the house, community, and campus.
“The way that we look at this is this isn’t something we are doing to benefit ourselves or trying to benefit Acacia, it’s just the right thing to do honestly, it’s something that so many guys in this house are passionate about our house mom pushed us to talk about that we think that this is the perfect opportunity for men of Acacia to be able to properly understand how to tackle mental health issues and help the community,” said Gamber.
Gamber mentioned that the support from all the guys is something that has helped many of them.
