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  • Brian
    Brian

    Mental Health Awareness

    Why it matters?

    When Unichef started in 2015, the “awareness” of Mental Health Issues in catering were extremely limited, few employers and even fewer chefs realised the enormity of the situation.

    We count ourselves into that equation, as we too were oblivious to the daily struggles of many of our colleagues.

    When our Facebook Page started chefs began writing to us, wanting to tell their story, those stories shook us to the core. For the first time many of us began to realise mental illness effected chefs, and not just the odd one or two, but indeed many thousands.

    And then we realised that we also knew many of these chefs, and we had been working alongside of them for many years without realising the often huge sacrifices they have to make just to earn a living in the job they love.

    From that day on we knew that if Unichef was to help chefs then we needed to embrace MHI and work to learn more about those issues and those that have them. We started from scratch, we listened, and we learned, we talked, and we communicated with new friends and associates. We joined the Time to Change project in early years and more recently became very close to MIND in working together to end Mental Health discrimination in our industry.

    Today Unichef stands proud in the fact that we have done more to raise awareness of MHI in catering than any other Union, and when we became a CIC we took the inspirational step of enshrining MHI into our constitution, the first Union ever to do so.

    We constantly work to make all chefs and employers “aware” that the chefs your working with may have an illness that they often don’t want to talk about, but that they have every day of their lives, they don’t want pity or your money, they just need you to understand.

    Taking time to understand that having MHI is a daily strain in what is a hugely difficult job, taking time to check on your colleague, taking time to realise that their life might not be the same as yours, taking time to care, and taking time to support.

    So, awareness matters,  not just this week, but as a constant theme in our everyday lives. Being aware that we have a 1 in 4 chance of working with someone that needs our understanding and a 1 in 4 chance that their bad days are 10 times worse than ours.

    Be aware of Mental Health Issues, not just today, but forever.




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