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OUR HISTORY
OUR HISTORY
Soaring Minds Incorporated
was co-founded in June 2018 by two high school students who envisioned broad availability of the necessary tools to combat the crisis of mental health in the Milwaukee community.
&
This is the STORY of...
how we
began
how we
continued
how we
Evoled
the beginning
From pain to purpose:
Unaware of the mental struggles of fellow classmates and lacking basic mental health literacy, Soaring Minds soon-to-be founders, Shankar and Rajat, experienced just how broken our system really is. It was a shock when 5 students and alumni of the Elmbrook School District committed suicide in the year of 2016. Questions and thoughts swarmed these two’s minds. How could this have happened? How was this allowed? Shankar and Rajat were left alarmed. They realized that, like everyone else, they had been susceptible to the stigma surrounding mental health. After educating themselves and reflecting on the past incidence, they found the answers to their questions:
#1
Imagine that a person has just received a diagnosis of a mental illness. What does it feel like to be surrounded by images, rumours, and popular beliefs about people with mental illnesses? Moreover, what happens when that student accepts those images and beliefs as the truth about their chances of success in life?
#1
#2
Stigma is a cluster of negative attitudes and beliefs that motivate the general public to fear, reject, avoid and discriminate against people with mental illnesses. Stigma is not just a matter of using the wrong word or action, it is about disrespect. It is the use of negative labels to identify a person living with mental illness, and is a barrier. Fear of stigma and the resulting discrimination discourages individuals and their families from getting the help they need.
#2
the growth
From purpose to vision:
The question soon posed was 'what exactly can we do to translate our audacious vision into reality, while uniting passionate minds to achieve it?’ The answer became clear: moonshot thinking. When President John. F Kennedy said we would put a man on the moon within a decade, he displayed the power of moonshot thinking. The genius of his original moonshot was the fact that although he didn’t know how to do it, he was going to find a way. Essentially, the difficulty of the task did not deter Kennedy as he knew the importance of his endeavor. Similarly, throughout the course of history, we’ve seen that when driven people set their minds to ambitious goals they can make the seemingly impossible, possible. Moonshot thinking is about just that — having the courage to commit and double down on difficult goals which when achieved will redefine humanity as we know it.
At Soaring Minds we have brought together a team of passionate students, educators, physicians and psychologists committed to building a vehicle for social change capable of achieving the moonshot goals needed to transform the future of mental health.
the
RISE
a vision becomes ACTION
Today, Soaring Minds is now recognized as a grassroots driven 501(c)3 non-profit organization that develops innovative strategies, rooted in groundbreaking technologies and educational research, for providing resources to prepare for and cope with daily mental health struggles early.
Our VISION is a place where discussion about mental health is cultivated and normalized. We seek to contribute to a community-wide effort to promote a stigma-free environment where everyone feels safe and empowered
Our SLOGAN is “There is no health without mental health.” We realized that we needed to be unapologetic with our goals and mission; the only way to combat the crisis of mental health is with a steadfast, unwavering course of action.
Our ORGANIZATION is structured as a tech startup with members from varying backgrounds. Our resources are the aggregate of the work put forth by the different team members at Soaring Minds, and we will continue working assiduously on the behalf of those struggling with mental health.
“Never Stop. Never stop fighting. Never stop dreaming”
- Tom Hiddleston
In solidarity,
The Members of Soaring Minds