Establish a National Mental Health Awareness Week for every public high school in the United States

As a college student, I am painfully aware of the crisis of suicides among youth. For people my age, suicide is the second leading cause of death, killing more people annually than cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease combined. Astoundingly, one in ten college students said that they seriously considered committing suicide in the past year. The reason why progress is not being made is the stigma surrounding mental diseases. By dedicating a week to raising awareness, we can bring this issue out of the darkness and into the light. We can teach young people that it is okay not to be okay, and that seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness. These astonishing statistics can't just make us sad; they must compel us to act...now!