Last week was the eighth annual Thrive Week at UBC — a week-long mental health celebration filled with events that allow students, staff and faculty to learn about their mental health and improve it.
Thrive Week was started in 2009 by two people passionate about educating individuals about their mental health.
“The important thing to know about Thrive is that it is for all members of the campus — for both students and staff,” said Amanda Unruh, the Thrive co-chair and Wellness Program coordinator.
Since its first year, Thrive has grown tremendously, even spreading throughout Canada with eight other schools also doing similar events on their campuses.
“Initially, there weren’t this many organizations and clubs that would partner with us — but this year, there have been a lot of new organizations and clubs that partner with us,” said Unruh.
In order to get involved with Thrive Week, organizations need to get in touch with the event organizers in October, at which point a partnership begins to be developed.
“Thrive Week is at Okanagan campus at the same time, which brings the two campuses together,” said Miranda Massie, Thrive co-chair.
Throughout the week, many events take place on campus. On this year's first day, there was Thrive's kick-off celebration, which featured free drinks, snacks, music and stress balls. The last day was celebrated with UBC’s largest Zumba class which was hosted by UBC Recreation.
Walking through the campus, the Thrive Week events were easy to spot with the yellow signs. The events themselves varied widely — there were yoga classes and movie nights, as well as other events that were open throughout the entire week, like the Gratitude Wall in Orchard Commons, where students were able to put up sticky notes about everything they are grateful for.
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