53 young 'silent heroes' recognised for contributions to community

As a peer support leader at Cedar Girls’ Secondary School, Neyati Umamaheswar noticed that many of her peers were facing mental health struggles as a result of stress in school, at home or elsewhere.

- Zhaki Abdullah

To help them, she started Minds Untangled, an initiative aimed at educating young people about mental health issues, in 2022 when she was 15 years old.

Through posts on its Instagram and TikTok accounts, the volunteer-run group hopes to create awareness of conditions such as bipolar disorder and general anxiety disorder.

“We know a lot of people can’t really afford therapists or counsellors at a young age, so we want to focus on giving them the right information on how they can help themselves,” said Neyati, now 17 and studying at Victoria Junior College (VJC).

The group is now looking at widening its reach by working with other schools besides VJC for outreach efforts, and even expanding internationally.

For her efforts, Neyati was among 53 young people from 24 schools recognised at the second Singapore Silent Heroes Student Awards ceremony on July 27.