Mental wellness charity Athenie’s Angels will be holding their annual fundraising event on November 24, in an effort to raise awareness about mental health and provide support for those in need.
The origins of the charity came after Peter Kalos and Aya-Ti Thomas lost their daughter Athenie to suicide in 2020.
Once a year on the anniversary of Athenie’s death, they hold a fundraising event to share knowledge, to help people have difficult discussions and to make young people feel more comfortable to voice their anxieties and challenges.
During the first year of the charity, they held mental wellness programs working with professionals to educate on skills about regulating emotional health.
“We’ll never know what was going on in her mind during those final moments, but we sat there thinking what skills, what tools can we give teens so they’re able to find their own way out when they feel trapped. That was the start of our journey,” Kalos tells Neos Kosmos.
“The number one cause of death amongst teenagers in Australia is suicide. I never knew that before Athenie, I never paid attention to that, I had no reason to – but that’s shocking.
“Yet here we are walking around as a society like nothing is happening. What have we missed as a society? For all we’ve created our teens are willingly ending their lives… and were not talking about it?
“If a plane crashed every year with 350 teens on it, there would be an immediate cry out from everyone… this is what’s going on and we don’t address it as a society, the truth is we don’t know how,” Kalos says.
The aim of the event is to focus on the positives and share the lessons they’ve learnt and to show people the tools and skills to help them navigate tough discussions.
At this year’s event there will be mental health professionals, experts and guest speakers to share their insights.
Kalos said he hopes that they can help people avoid the “nightmare we’ve been through.”
“We don’t grow up knowing these skills, most of our parents didn’t have these skills, we didn’t before Athenie died, but now we do, the knowledge is out there and we’re here to share it.
“We really need help getting the word out especially to the Greek community because as a community we avoid those discussions,” Kalos says.
Kalos says that as a fellow Greek-Australian, since Athenie’s death, they have lost contact with 70 per cent of their relatives.
“When I reach out to them they all say the same thing… ‘I don’t know what to say or do’ and I tell them we don’t know what we need either but let’s have that discussion.”
“Others feel uncomfortable bringing their young kids around us because they ‘might catch it’ or something and I tell them that if their child saw how uncomfortable they are with the topic of suicide; then how do they expect their child to open up to them? They won’t – ours didn’t and we thought we were open to those discussions- we’ve learned so much, and we want to share all those lessons in the hopes that other people don’t end up where we are. Learn the lessons without paying the price.”
The free event, ‘Journey To Joy Celebration’ will be held on Sunday November 24, 10am to 2pm at Community Hall Centre Oakleigh, 142-144 Drummond Street Oakleigh Vic.
For more information, visit atheniesangels.org.au
