Adolescents and high school students are old enough to understand the importance of mental health care, but at the same time immature enough to recognize an emotional challenge. Anxiety, depression, shyness, fear, stigma among young people sometimes lead to a fatal end. The campaign "Your story, our support" of the civil organization "Youth can" for the mental health of high school students has started.

Ten schools that will voluntarily register for the call will implement the program during the school year, explains Free Press, Filip Ivkovski, program coordinator of "Mladite can".

- The program for mental health will be delivered to the students by the class teachers. They will have to make a plan in which way they will hold the classroom lessons, according to contents of an informative and educational nature, I am talking about that pedagogical moment. If until now the class hour was reduced to a discussion about grades, justified and unjustified, absent, etc. from now on, those 45 minutes will take on a different dimension in order to focus on encouraging the development of young people. Let me emphasize that this is not about theory, the children will not study definitions of what mental health is, which we are used to in regular education, but through practical exercises, discussions, interactive workshops in order to make a step forward in raising awareness - says Ivkovski.

Considering that not every class teacher is a teacher in the field of psychology and psychiatry, adds Ivkovski, the content they have to convey to the students is adapted and they can easily manage, and the emphasis of these lectures is prevention and basic education.

- We believe that we will not encounter resistance from schools, because this will not be an additional obligation for teachers. They will have to go through a short training with us and after that they will realize that these are short creative exercises that will help not only the students individually but also in developing the class as a healthy whole - said Ivkovski.

According to Ivkovski, the educational component of education has been lost over the years.

– Schools are educational institutions, but it seems to me that that part of education is being forgotten. It's all about conveying the material, the focus is only on technical knowledge, not life knowledge.

With him, we recalled how in the past there was a household subject in schools, where children learned to knit, cook and similar practical skills.

- We are aware that there are schools and environments where there are no psychologists, and they are the most important link for working on this problem. In addition, in one school there is only one psychologist who is physically unable to achieve. The school psychologist is free and easily accessible to students, here we must not forget the fact that these services are not financially available for everyone - said Ivkovski.

Five high school students also spoke on the topic of mental health in front of the "Sloboden Pechat" camera. All of them know someone who has faced emotional challenges.