Utilise your events management and fundraising expertise to assist a leading not for profit
Created By
The Sunrise FoundationDescription
The Sunrise Foundation established in 2006, is a Not for Profit Organisation created to develop and deliver purpose built preventative education programs addressing depression for young people aged 12-18 years. The Sunrise Foundation was born out of the personal experiences of Wayne Schwass who lived with the illness for ten of his fifteen years playing AFL Football. Our Vision is to ‘change lives & save lives’ and we achieve this by engaging, educating and empowering young people on the subject of depression.HeadSmart is a tailor made preventative and early intervention program that combines education and screening for depression. HeadSmart has been developed and delivered in partnership with The Sunrise Foundation, ORYGEN Youth Health Training & Development, ORYGEN Youth Health Research Centre and the University of Melbourne.
HeadSmart aims to engage, educate and empower young people on the subject of depression. HeadSmart has been designed to increase young people’s awareness of depression including the signs, symptoms and risk factors; increase young people’s ability to recognise depression; assist young people to develop the skills enabling them to support someone living with depression; improve help seeking strategies & promote the role of the key welfare members with each recipient school. By the end of 2008, over 1000 young people aged 15-16 years will have participated in our tailored HeadSmart programs.
This role involves advising a small fundraising committee of available strategies to raise funds for the expansion of our HeadSmart Program. These strategies would be used to develop a fund raising strategy for the foundation to implement over the coming 12 to 24 months. The fundraising committee comprises of the executive patron (Wayne Schwass) and General Manager (Sonia Berton). Dates for the committee meetings will be held either on a Tues, Wed or Thursday between 10am and 2pm.
Mental Health Disorders particularly depression are common in young people. Seventy five percent of mental health problems occur before the age of 25. The World Health Organisation is predicting by the year 2020, depression will be the second leading cause of non life threatening disability behind cancer. This work will be instrumental in assisting the foundation with raising its profile, making the community, media and politicians more aware of depression, reduce the stigma associated with depression, encourage young people to seek timely and appropriate assistance and assist the foundation to deliver more programs to young people at risk of harm associated with depression including suicidal ideation.
