Elpida just graduated from the Music School of Zakynthos. In a conversation with a member of our team, she shares how her participation in the "Mental Health: an in-school approach" program gave her the strength to pursue her goals without hesitation and with a conscious belief in her own potential.

But let's start from the beginning. Elpida spends her days doing what she loves: playing music. She studies harmony, plays the piano, and hopes to study Musicology. When talking about her next steps, she reveals that, although studying in Athens wasn't her first choice due to fear of the unknown, she finds herself thinking about the possibilities opening up in front of her, telling herself that she wants to explore them.

As she puts it: "that's exactly what I liked about the program. The fact that a stranger can talk to you and share their own experience, their own story, and what they've been through. They can make something click, make you think about something you hadn't thought of before, hear about something you didn't know you might enjoy, and simply open up more horizons for you."

Recounting how she felt when she first encountered the program, on her teacher's initiative, Elpida says she found it unlike anything she'd experienced before. She hadn't known this kind of opportunity existed, and her immediate thought was: "this is a wonderful thing for all schools - it could help so many kids!"

In her first live group session, she was quite shy. But as time went on, she became more actively involved, asking the mentors questions. As she shares: "when something really interests me, I get determined and I want to learn, so the shyness fades. It's still there, really, but I want to learn, no matter how shy I feel at the moment."

The mentors, for their part, encouraged her to ask questions without fear, while also going deeper into the topics that interested her, because, as she explains, that was the whole point of each discussion, not a surface-level approach to a subject. She also notes that every live group session sparked further conversation, both with her teachers at school and with her classmates. Another thing that excited her, as she tells us, was the enthusiasm with which the mentors spoke about their professions - whether a psychologist or a writer - as she rarely sees people talk to young people with "such enthusiasm and genuine interest in their story and in the future." When asked what she enjoys most about her interactions with mentors, she answers: "we communicate with others, we share something, and we're not just stuck in a box. We can step outside of it. It's very important to me to talk to people other than my teachers, because it takes me out of my comfort zone."

Sharing more from her conversations with mentors, Elpida appreciated the fact that beyond careers, they also touched upon topics such as collaboration, respect, and tolerance. She believes that conversations around these issues can genuinely make someone stop and think - so that when they become part of a team, they carry those values with them as a guide.

Moving the conversation toward the transition from school to adult life, Elpida tells us that in her local community, young people are not systematically supported in preparing for their future. Her participation in the program helped her discover the different paths opening up ahead of her. One session that stands out to her is the live group session with a mentor who was a writer - he inspired her to persevere and chase her dreams. As she explains, the writer had experienced rejection more than once before managing to publish his book, and hearing about the challenges he overcame to achieve his goal encouraged her not to give up.

It is at this point that Elpida shares that she wishes she had encountered the program earlier in her life, because it would have given her something she constantly looks for: the ability to explore her options for the future. As she says, "there are so many interesting things I'd like to learn about or pursue, beyond the piano, but I didn't have access to this information, so my participation helped me with that. I didn't even know, for example, that someone could become a book critic. I really liked the idea of meeting writers, reading books, and sharing my opinion on them. It's something I feel I could actually do." Driven by her desire to discover and learn in order to find what she consciously chooses to do, Elpida goes deeper: "I developed this mindset when I was 15, it was a very tough age, I have to say. I learned a lot, and I'm glad I did. If I had come across the program back then, I think it would have helped me a great deal in figuring out what I really want, in collaborating with others, and in finding a sense of balance within myself."

Wrapping up our discussion, we asked Elpida what she would say to a person her age about participating in the program. She said she would encourage them to get actively involved, noting that "it's life-changing, it's something that can change the way you think. It would be amazing if it became part of the school curriculum. Kids need to encounter it, to see that there is something else out there - something huge, if I can put it that way."

We are deeply grateful to Elpida for sharing with our team everything she took away from her participation in the program - an experience that will stay with her long into the future.