Background
According to a research conducted by Mind Hong Kong in 2021 with 1010 randomly selected adults, social stigma and lack of understanding among Hong Kong people on mental health are alarming. For instance, over 70% of respondents were unwilling to live with mental health sufferers, among which 1 in 3 even was willing to end friendships with those diagnosed with mental illness. Also, over 40% of the respondents attributed the main cause of mental illness to the mental health sufferers, considering “lack of self-discipline and willpower”. These data illustrate the need to dismantle mental health stigma in the local community. Furthermore, owing to our market landscape research, the majority view, if not all, current LARP games in Hong Kong are having a stigmatized view towards mental health in general
Proposed Solution
We deeply believe that one of the most effective ways for people to understand stigma is through direct experience. Therefore, based on the immersive nature of LARP, we propose to introduce a destigmatising LARP game to the current LARP market in Hong Kong. We plan to finish the script of the LARP from May to September, then we will try to sell it to LARP studios in Hong Kong. In our story setting, the characters have different identities (e.g. housewife) , mental health struggles (e.g. stress), stigma received (e.g. public stigma/ professional stigma) as well as hopes and dreams. We hope to reduce stereotypes on people having mental health struggles by showing their multi-dimensionality, i.e. both suffering and bright side. We also give them identities common in daily life so that players can easily identify hence empathize their situation.
Objectives
We propose that through perspective taking and immersive learning in LARP, participants would:
Gain awareness of the mental health stigma they originally might possess;
Understand that everyone is multi-dimensional, no matter people with or without mental disorders; therefore, people with mental illness should not be defined solely based on their “mental disorder tag”;
Reduce their negative attitudes towards people with or had mental illness, and;
Be empowered to advocate for mental health stigma destigmatisation, including but not limited to engaging in private collective actions such as making conscious attempts to use non mental health stigmatizing language or using social media platforms to raise others’ awareness of mental health stigma.