Oshkosh students host yoga to promote mental health awareness and suicide prevention

OSHKOSH, Wis. (WBAY) - Eli Vang and Antonio Thompson, 11th graders in the Communities Program at Oshkosh North High School, partnered with Bob Poeschl from NAMI Oshkosh to help promote mental health awareness and suicide prevention.

They collaborated to create youth-produced brochures and plan a social media campaign through the NAMI Oshkosh social media accounts.

To start Mental Health Awareness Month, Antonio Thompson, a student, hosted an exciting yoga session on May 1.

The yoga session was open to all students at Oshkosh North for around 20 minutes.

Antonio led the group through a collection of yoga movements, including the tree pose, warrior 2, salute the sun, and many more.

“Your childhood is about your development and growth on a mental, and especially emotional level, and a huge part of this development is learning healthy ways to manage your mental health. As you grow older, you tend to deal with more stressors in life, so it’s important to learn how to deal with them,” Thompson said.

Every year, juniors from the Communities Program choose a project to take on in order to help impact the community around them.

The program’s semester of service allows students to branch out into a project that complements their skill sets and their passions.

As part of their project, Antonio and Eli have been collaborating with Bob Poeschl to create youth-designed brochures, one for youth and another for adults.

The brochures were developed over the course of seven weeks.

With critiques from their partner, Eli and Antonio produced products that were distributed at the NAMI 5K on May 3.