Moving More for Our Mental Health
Mental Health Awareness Week this year takes place between Monday 13th May and Sunday 19th May 2024. The Mental Health Foundation theme for this year is “Movement: Moving More for Our Mental Health”
Being active and doing exercise can be very important for our mental health, so this year’s theme wants to help people find more time for movement in their daily routines.
We work with a number of speakers who speak on mental health and in particular the importance of exercise and the outdoors.
Dan Keeley is one of the UK’s leading mental health activists, thought leaders, and keynote speakers on a mission to empower the UK to speak up when they are suffering.
In 2017, after a 5-year battle with bipolar disorder and coming close to taking his own life, Dan ran 1250 miles from the Colosseum in Rome back to the London Eye to share his story on a national scale – raising over £15,000 for The Campaign Against Living Miserably and inspiring hundreds of others to speak up about their own personal battles.
Harrison Ward, perhaps better known as Fell Foodie, is an inspirational mental health speaker honestly highlighting his personal battles with depression, suicidal ideations, alcohol addiction, and obesity. He is also known as an outdoor cook, recreating restaurant-style meals on camping equipment in remote locations.
His life was very different just some short years ago. Struggling with a clinical depression that first appeared in his adolescence, Harrison’s life spiraled out of control as he began to medicate his mind with alcohol. At its worst, he was consuming in excess of 20 pints daily, was a full-time smoker, and had ballooned in weight to over 22 stone. His medicine had become a further poison.
The end of a relationship and a personal breakdown in 2016 led to a major life change seeking support for the first time after suffering in silence. Harrison Ward, sober since that day, has since thrown himself into fitness and hiking and merged his passion for food into his new active routine outdoors.
Former British Army Major, multi-record-breaking adventure athlete, passionate mental health campaigner, and inspirational speaker Sally Orange MBE has crammed a lot into her 49 years on the planet and she’s nowhere near done.
When she’s not undertaking record-breaking endurance achievements (often dressed in thoughtfully chosen costumes to raise a smile and start conversations around mental health), Sally is the focus of inspirational speaking engagements, attended by audiences of all ages at a variety of events, including at Buckingham Palace and Horse Guards Parade, and has featured in the media numerous times. Everyone is captivated by the modest, engaging, and approachable way she shares the mental health and resilience learnings she has gathered from a career in the British Army and decades of volunteering and undertaking grueling physical challenges all over the world.
Enda O’Doherty is an inspirational speaker and endurance athlete who has taken on some of the world’s toughest challenges. His endurance, drive passion, and ability to convey a message have made him a much sought-after speaker.
As an endurance athlete whose mindset and mental toughness sets him apart, he has completed 9 marathons in 8 days, made even more incredible by the fact he carried a washing machine on his back throughout. Constant change, progression, and growth have seen him attempt to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, 19,000 feet with a washing machine on his back too – both in aid of charity.
Having had an alcohol addiction, which saw him drinking up to four bottles of whiskey a week, Enda realised his life needed to change or the drink was going to kill him. He decided to stop and now sober found a passion for helping others and became an endurance athlete.
These are just a few of the mental health speakers we work and to find out more please contact us at 020 8854 7247 or email enquiries@scampspeakers.co.uk