Meet the St Andrews students behind a new charity for destigmatising mental health

Three St Andrews students started the charity B&Together which launched last Thursday.

It is a student-led nonprofit aiming to create a nationwide movement to destigmatise mental health through both education and fundraising.

B&Together is also raising money for the UK mental health charities BEAT and YoungMinds.

Through their platform, B&Together want to raise awareness for mental health among Britain’s student population, while raising money for the UK mental health charities BEAT and YoungMinds.

The team works to deliver accessible knowledge and guidance that is informed by world leading research and proven practical application.

They will be using their social media platforms and website to share blog posts and articles to encourage students to develop an accurate, educated and honest understanding of mental health and how our nation can collectively unite to normalise the problems we all face.

Willa Robertson, Xavy Bull and Hannah Mcloughlin are the third year St Andrews students behind the new nonprofit. But this is just the head team. They have 20 members across the country in different years heading up branch uni teams.

Willa, Xavy and Hannah

They decided B&Together was needed now because “Covid was affecting so many people our age and we had so much time in lockdown that it would be the perfect change to really get a head start and start building the charity from scratch.

“We did have to push back our original starting date which was meant to be in September and obviously we have had to launch only half of our charity, as events aren’t on at the moment.”

B&Together has been in the pipeline since January.

In the future they plan “to open up the conversation around mental health amongst our age group”.

They told the St Andrews Tab: “We want to expand into as many universities as we can across the country and just provide a really go to connection service for unis to be able to talk to other students about their experiences and help each other”.

They are raising money through the sale of t-shirts and wristbands on their website and events when Covid restrictions allow.

They also said: “We will defo expand our merch and get more young and up and coming artists involved across the UK.

“We have lots of exciting stuff planned but we don’t want to give too much away!”

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• Take The St Andrews Tab sexual assault survey 2020

• St Andrews Principal says students not liable to pay course fees up to 10 weeks

• This is what it’s like to be a St Andrews fresher: Pandemic edition