Campaigns
Other Campaigns and Events
2025 ¡ª Mental Health Stigma Off, We Switch on Support!
To mark World Mental Health Day, which is celebrated every year on 10 October, the UN System Mental Health and Well-being Strategy Team is inviting UN personnel to help raise awareness and deepen our understanding of mental health stigma.
During the month of October, we are encouraging colleagues to flip the switch and take action to reduce mental health stigma. Colleagues are invited to create and inspire together. To provoke reflection and meaningful action, we are posing the following questions:
- If mental health stigma were a physical object, creature, or barrier, what would it look like and how would you overcome it?
- Imagine a workplace free of stigma¡ªwhat does a normal day there feel and look like?
- If you could send one short, powerful message to silence mental health stigma and switch on support, what would it be?
Submit your response
Deadline: 31 October
Submission email address: mhs@un.org
Colleagues are invited to submit their responses to one or more of the questions listed above in creative formats (video, artwork, writing, poetry, or others) to mhs@un.org by 31 October.
Submissions will be acknowledged, safeguarded, anonymised for future analysis, and stored securely.
Every contribution helps dismantle stigma and strengthens a culture of support across the UN system.
UN Poetry: Sauti poems
As part of the United Nations¡¯ World Mental Health Month in October 2020, the Mental Health and Wellbeing Team launched a system-wide poetry initiative inviting colleagues around the world to share poems in any language, style or form.
The first volume, Sauti: Poems of Healing (2021), was followed by a second edition in 2022, reflecting the growing resonance of the initiative across the UN community. In 2024, a third volume, Sauti: Poems of Hope, was published, continuing to explore themes of connection, resilience and shared humanity through poetry. In 2026, the fourth volume, Sauti: Poems of Love, further expanded the initiative by welcoming voices from across and beyond the UN community, including family members, retirees and contributors from around the world.
Sauti: Poems of Healing (Vol 1, 2021)
53 poems from 10 UN organizations, 21 countries, and 7 languages.
Sauti: Poems of Healing (Vol 2, 2022)
47 poems from 21 UN organizations, 23 countries, and 12 languages.
Sauti: Poems of Hope (2024)
119 poems from more than 20 UN organizations, 50 duty stations, and 18 languages encompassing poets of over 60 nationalities.
Sauti: Poems of Love (2026)
83 poems from contributors of over 40 nationalities in 30 locations and 17 languages from across and beyond the UN community.