The Green Ribbon Campaign 2020

Creating a healthy City with The Lord Mayor's Appeal

The Lord Mayor’s Appeal’s This is Me initiative is focused on creating a City that is healthy. It is committed to changing attitudes around mental health and strives to create healthier and more inclusive workplaces by reducing stigma, dispelling myths, and improving employee wellbeing for good.

This year we are marking World Mental Health Day on Saturday 10 October by asking people to share their stories and wear green ribbons to turn social media green – creating a visible movement of support across the globe for ending the stigma around mental health.

The theme for 2020’s World Mental Health Day is ‘Greater Investment – Greater Access. Everyone, everywhere.’ It demonstrates how important it is to widen access and participation to mental health for all people, no matter who they The overall objective of the day is to raise awareness of mental health issues around the world and mobilise efforts in support of mental health.

So, for this year’s event, we have created materials and assets to support you to develop your activity internally and show your commitment to ending the stigma by being part of a global campaign, enabling your employees to come together wherever they are.

We want to help you to;

1. Share stories to #endthestigma for everyone, everywhere.
2. Wear a Green Ribbon to #endthestigma for everyone, everywhere.
3. Give a Green Ribbon to #endthestigma for everyone, everywhere.

We have developed a range of resources to support you in your celebrations of World Mental Health Day, available here, and below we have explained some of the activities that you can take part in.

We hope you are able to join us to #endthestigma around mental health for everyone, everywhere.

Share your story

Our research shows that sharing stories from employees who have experienced mental health challenges is one of the most powerful ways to open up the conversation, reduce the stigma and create a culture within an organisation that is supportive of mental health. Sharing employee stories may feel harder when we are working remotely but there are some great ways to ask your employees to share digitally. You can ask employees to share their experiences via blogs, or through holding virtual events, such as a tea and talk.

Why not join us for our next webinar in our 2020 series, How to get senior management buy-in, being held on Wednesday 30 September at 12.00pm – 12.45pm? This webinar will provide practical advice and tips on how to get senior management buy-in. Hear from our This is Me businesses on the approach they took, what their journey looked like, and the impact having senior management buy-in has had on their This is Me campaign.

Sign up here.

 Register for This is Me here to receive our How to Guide on creating a This is Me storytelling campaign in your workplace.

Wear a physical Green Ribbon

Green Ribbons are back! For colleagues that have already returned to the office, Green Ribbons and Green Ribbon pin badges are available to order, taking around one week to arrive. Get your Green Ribbons here and wear it with pride.

Wear a Green Ribbon on your profile picture

Use our Profile Picture Frame to add the Green Ribbon to your social media profile picture.

Change your cover photo

Update your social media cover photo to demonstrate your support to The Green Ribbon campaign visibly and get your contacts and followers talking. Get your LinkedIn Green Ribbon cover photos here and your Twitter cover photo here.

Special signature

Show your support online with the Green Ribbon email signature by adding the Green Ribbon email signature to your emails to #endthestigma in every mailing in the run up to World Mental Health Day.

Give a Green Ribbon

Connect with others using the Give a Green Ribbon image and messaging. Share this image with five of your colleagues, or people in your network to let them know you’re thinking about them. This can be someone you haven’t spoken to in a long time, or someone you speak to all the time but miss! Don’t forget to use #endthestigma + #[your city] so that we can see how far the Green Ribbon travels across the UK and globally!

Create a film of your organization passing a Green Ribbon through your global offices

For Mental Health Awareness Week, Acuris created a video virtually passing their origami Green Ribbons around their offices globally. You can watch it here.

For World Mental Health Day, on 10 October 2020, we’d like your organisation to do the same to capitalise on the worldwide focus. First, use our Origami Green Ribbon template to create a Green Ribbon. Then ask your team to film a short clip on a laptop webcam or phone camera, of themselves receiving the Green Ribbon on one side of the screen, and passing it to the other. Next, stitch them all together and you’ll have a video giving the Green Ribbon to #endthestigma for everyone, everywhere!

Don’t forget to upload it to social media and tag us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, with #endthestigma + the cities that your colleagues are in (e.g. #endthestigma #Edinburgh #London #Manchester), so that we can see it how far the Green Ribbon has travelled!