Muslim Mind Collaborative

Mental Health Awareness Week 2026
This year’s theme is Action, but meaningful action must begin with understanding.

For many Muslim communities, mental health is shaped by faith, identity, belonging, family, migration, stigma, discrimination, and lived experience, yet these realities are often overlooked in how services are designed and delivered.

Awareness matters.
But without reflection, cultural understanding, and meaningful engagement, inequalities remain unchanged.

This is why the Muslim Mind Collaborative (MMC) exists: to strengthen faith equity within mental health through collaboration, research, training, and community-led insight.

As part of this work, we’ve launched the MMC Faith Equity Capacity Building Programme 2026: supporting mainstream and statutory mental health services to better understand the needs, experiences, and barriers faced by Muslim communities. Through training, practical guidance, and shared learning, the programme aims to strengthen faith-sensitive and culturally competent practice across the sector.

Because better mental health support starts when communities feel seen, understood, and meaningfully included.

📩 Learn more:https://muslimmindcollaborative.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/MMC-Faith-Equity-Capacity-Building-Programme-Cohort-2026-1.pdf

Value Every Mind | London East Academy Spotlight
At London East Academy, our Value Every Mind programme created space for students and parents to explore mental health, identity, and emotional wellbeing through a faith-sensitive, practical lens.

The day began with a whole-school assembly led by Afsar Ali, who introduced students to a simple Body–Mind–Soul framework, helping them understand wellbeing as something shaped by everyday habits, values, and choices, not just moments of crisis. The session grounded mental health in faith, reflection, and personal responsibility, offering students tools they could realistically use in daily life.

A parent coffee morning followed, providing a calm and open space for families to reflect on the pressures young people are navigating today and how to support wellbeing at home with compassion and understanding.

In the creative wellbeing workshop, RehanJamil invited students to explore photography as a form of reflection and self-expression. Using storytelling and visual framing, students learned how images can capture emotion, meaning, and perspective, helping them slow down, observe their world more intentionally, and share their own narratives with confidence.

📊 What students told us:
78.5% felt calmer or more relaxed after the session
85.7% felt more positive after taking part in creative activity

💬 “Photos can represent anything if captured correctly.”
💬 “It was fun, entertaining and very informative.”

"I believe the assembly helped broaden students’ understanding of mental health, the importance of recognising the signs, and the different methods they can use to maintain their wellbeing. These types of programmes are important because, in a community with many different cultures where mental health is often seen as a taboo topic, it’s essential to help them understand that everyone has mental health. It’s crucial to recognise this, and there is nothing to feel embarrassed about.” LEA Teacher

Delivered by Muslim Mind Collaborative and supported by Muslim Aid, this work continues to show how faith-literate, creative approaches can make mental health education accessible, relevant, and meaningful for young Muslims.

Learn more:
muslimmindcollaborative.co.uk/value-every-mind-muslim-secondary-school-wellbeing-programme
muslimmindcollaborative.co.uk/edu