Third Culture Minds

At Third Culture Minds, we are passionate about changing the narrative around mental health for young people from migrant and refugee backgrounds. We work across the length and breadth of Aotearoa, with a hugely diverse range of nationalities and cultures, to share our message - everyone deserves to get the help they need to live up to their full potential.

At Third Culture Minds, we’re pleased about the progress New Zealand society has made in more openly discussing mental health. But, we're worried that this progress does not seem to have taken into account the unique perspectives & needs of young people from our communities. We're working to change this. But achieving this is a big task, and requires changes to our mental health policies, services, funding and changes to how we ourselves talk about mental health.

Our core work is about normalising the conversation about mental health in our communities. We think this is a crucial first step, because it further empowers our young people to access the help they need and ask for the changes our system needs to serve every New Zealander. But these conversations are hard, and that is why we believe in the power of direct, face to face discussion. We run workshops with young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds across Aotearoa.

We create safe spaces for third culture kids to discuss and share their uniquely diverse experiences and challenges, highlight resources and services available and discuss barriers to accessing these.