Hands receives funds for Believe in Kids Pledge program

Hands The Family Network
News Release

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On Friday October 25th, at South River Public School, The Royal Bank of Canada Foundation presented a cheque for $20,000 to the mental health storytelling project, “Difficult Lives, Inspiring Stories”, coordinated by Hands TheFamilyHelpNetwork.ca and Jim MacLachlan Presentations.

The storytelling project is one of 231 initiatives across Canada supported under the new RBC “Believe in Kids Pledge”, which is a formal 5-year, $100 million commitment.
“Difficult Lives, Inspiring Stories” is a mental health storytelling project which creates and presents current mental health stories for elementary and secondary students as well as adults.

To date six stories have been written and presented to over 14,000 students across 7 Ontario school boards since 2008. The staff and students of both the Near North District School Board and the Nipissing-Parry Sound Catholic District School Board have been instrumental in supporting and encouraging this local project.

With the support of RBC, “Difficult Lives, Inspiring Stories” has launched a website called StoriesConnect.ca, which allows all educators to access the scripts and videos. This past year, the story HERO, about bipolar disorder and teen depression, was filmed at Widdifield Secondary School and this video can now be found on StoriesConnect.ca.

Hands TheFamilyHelpNetwork.ca acknowledges and greatly appreciates the continuing support from the RBC Foundation and their continuing commitment to improving the well-being of Canadian youth.

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