The Ah Project from Ashley Stevens on Vimeo.

The Ah Project is a non-profit initiative for college-aged adults to express how loving someone with a severe mental illness has affected their lives. The letters ‘a’ and ‘h’ imply a multitude of meanings when paired together. Ah is the only word that provides an all-encompassing method of describing mental illness and all of the feelings that come with it—the moments of frustration, the moments of relief, the moments of surprise, the moments of anger, the moments of enlightenment, and the moments of acceptance.

The Current Resources

The available resources for family members of someone with a mental illness are websites with acronym names such as NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness), NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health), MHA (Mental Health America), and IMHRO (International Mental Health Research Organization). The missions of these organizations are noble, and they provide a wealth of information and links to support groups, but the visual and verbal language can often feel overwhelming, clinical, and uninviting. These organizations acknowledge that they have difficulty reaching transition-aged adults — 18 to 25 year-olds.

The Solution

The center point of The Ah Project is the website. The site serves as a venue for the audience to express emotions—guilt, frustration, anger, sadness, loneliness, relief—associated with being a sibling, child, or loved one of someone with a mental illness.
Users upload their artwork, photographs, videos, and text, and utilize tagging as a way to sort and view others’ content. The site maintains a design sensibility that is light and youthful, and uses language that is clear and personal.

A New Kind of Support Group
In order to connect the audience with each other, users can download an Ah badge to place on their Facebook profile. The Ah Badge is a Facebook application. By posting an Ah badge on your facebook account, it means that you know someone with a mental illness and are willing to talk about it. It gives young people a subversive way of connecting personally with each other.

Posters

The Ah Project posters are placed in high-traffic areas on college campuses by student health and counseling services. The posters inform students of The Ah Project and drive them to the site.

[Advisor: Brian Collins]