Asean-PACIFIC youth mental health fellowships
The fellowship program is for young people aged 18 to 30 from Australia, any Pacific Island nations or any ASEAN country who are passionate about youth mental health and want to create change in the mental health landscape in their respective countries.
- Applications for the 2025 ASEAN-Pacific Youth Mental Health Fellowships closed on Monday, March 10
The program has been established to build the capacity, skills and voices of young people to create positive change in mental health awareness, policy and systems reform. The program also supports participants to further develop their youth mental health project plan designed around the needs of their communities. The program runs for five months and is comprised of weekly online sessions and additional mentoring opportunities. To date, five Youth Mental Health Fellowships have been conducted.
The program consists of six modes of learning.
1. Education modules are a core part of the fellowship and provide the platform to develop knowledge and insights for mental health advocacy. The modules are composed of lectures, panel discussions and practical workshops. The modules build on each other and include a strong emphasis on interaction between fellows. The modules follow the Global Youth Mental Health Advocacy Toolkit which was developed by Orygen in 2020 as part of the global youth mental health partnership project with the World Economic Forum.
Module 1: Defining mental ill-health, advocacy and personal development.
Module 2: Safety in advocacy and sharing your personal mental health story.
Module 3: Preparing for advocacy and developing a proposal for change.
Module 4: Doing advocacy part 1: public speaking, policy and fundraising.
Module 5: Doing advocacy part 2: media and responding to risk.
Module 6: After advocacy, creating sustainable change.
2. Expert mentoring is used to help fellows develop skills and expertise tailored to their learning needs. Expert mentoring also encourages the fellow to explore the resources and networks to enact their proposal for change. Each fellow will be assigned their own expert mentor who they’ll meet with monthly. These sessions are designed to be dynamic, personal and informal.
3. Peer mentoring is an invaluable opportunity for the fellows to provide each other with strategic and emotional support. Fellows from diverse backgrounds and geographical areas will be paired together and will meet monthly.
4. Contact with leaders in global youth mental health. Beyond the impact of implementing their own proposal for change, Fellows will be able to network with international leaders in youth mental health.
5. Contribution. A key component of the program is experiential learning which allows fellows to engage with the established work of Orygen.
6. In-person forum. The aim of the forum is to bring Fellows together for an immersive opportunity to build connections with each other, learn from interactive workshops, solidify the session learnings, and expand their networks. The forum also provides an exclusive opportunity to connect with mental health experts and for Fellows to practically apply their advocacy.
Eligibility criteria
Applicants are required to meet the following criteria:
- be aged 18 to 30 years of age at the time of application;
- self-identify as having lived experience of mental ill-health, which can be personal experience or through family members or friends, or have a specific interest or skill in youth mental health;
- are from Australia, New Zealand, any ASEAN country (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam) or Pacific Island country (The Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, the Independent State of Samoa, the Kingdom of Tonga, Niue, the Republic of Fiji, the Republic of Kiribati, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Nauru, the Republic of Palau, the Republic of Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu);
- interested in changing your community’s policies or practices to create change in youth mental health; and,
- have a clearly defined challenge related to youth mental health that you wish to address with a viable advocacy plan.