About Us

The #IAMNOTJUSTSAD campaign was started by a group of East Asian students in Thornhill Secondary School participating in the Live Well Take Action program funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

Why is this campaign important to us? 

Discussing and uncovering Asians' mental health is important to us because we feel that they are not revealed to the public. When people mention Asians, the first words that come in mind are smart, perfect, and adaptive. However, the truth is many of us are not. (Lily)

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As Lily mentioned, this is an issue that is not "revealed" to the public, which is just sad because mental health is becoming a very prominent issue in today's society. In the media, we see movements, like Bell Let’s Talk, and shows, like 13 Reasons Why, and many influential people sharing about their mental health struggles. But, we don't see Asians talking about this issue in the mainstream media. So, this campaign is important to us, because this is an issue that is hardly discussed in our own community and we want to change that. We want to start a conversation, and I hope that this platform and this online community that we’re trying to build help become a catalyst for that conversation. (Dorothy)

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What do we hope to achieve through this site? 

We hope that mental health associations for Asians would be more made, and that people would not treat Asians differently. (Lily)

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As I previously mentioned, we want to start a conversation. We want to ask these hard questions and show these hard facts to show that it’s a bigger issue than what’s happening in your little family or what’s happening in your little community. It’s not just a Thornhill thing or an Asian-Canadian thing, but it’s an international thing where Asian communities all around the world can be struggling with mental illness or have mental health struggles. So, we want to share these stories of these brave people to start a conversation. (Dorothy) 

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Why is our site called #IAMNOTJUSTSAD? 

The phrase I am not just sad is very straight forward. We wanted to state that just simple, light feeling of sadness is not occurring in us. It is a big issue that has to be known by the public. (Lily)

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Moreover, with this phrase, we want to break the stigma. ​Too often in Asian communities, people don’t see that mental illness is a legitimate issue, so they kind of just brush it off and say that it’s not a big deal - they often think that you're just sad when you're struggling with your mental health. And, they often say that depression or anxiety or feelings of being overwhelmed or things that happen mentally don’t exist, because apparently if you're an Asian it’s just in your mind and you need to be able to get over it because of your mental ability and strength. And so, we hope that with these series of real-life stories, they will learn that this matter goes beyond just being "sad". (Dorothy)

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