​Selena Gomez & FLOTUS Champion Mental Health Activists ｜ MTV News

This is surreal, oh my god. A little surreal, I'm at the White House. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the First Lady of the United States, accompanied by the U.S. Surgeon General Selena Gomez and youth mental health leaders. Thank you and welcome to the White House. Today was an amazing day. We had youth from around the country who came together for the Youth Mental Health Forum. And this is so important because we are trying to build a broader movement in our country around mental health. Today was about sharing stories and tearing down stigma. It was about inspiring people with the actions that people are taking across the country. Once I found out what was going on mentally, I found there was more freedom for me to be okay with what I had because I was learning about it. Recovery isn't always the same as healing. And sometimes the darkness is inside of us too. You're part of history. You just moderated the first ever Mental Health Youth Action Forum. You have continued to champion this cause, especially with your Rare Impact Fund. What does it mean to have this experience, where this initiative is taking you all the way to the White House? If you would have told me that creating my Rare Impact Fund would have eventually led me to the White House, I don't think I would have believed you. I didn't even know if Rare was going to do well. It was like I was hoping for the best. And it was such a beautiful surprise. And I think the reason why it does so well is because we do stand behind a message that is essentially what you heard today. It's okay to not be okay. And here are ways that we want to be there for you and how to help you. So to be here from where I started is a moment I'll never forget. It was fantastic to have Selena here for the conversation. Her involvement was very, very important. And we need people like Selena to step up around the country and share those stories and not just stop at awareness. It's amazing to see another Latina on stage having this conversation. Someone who's not only a very powerful voice, but who's very inspiring and someone who I identify with very strongly. She was one of the very early celebrities and musicians and artists to actually talk about mental health and do it openly and share her journey. Tell me your thoughts on the young people you spoke with today. What impression did they leave on you? More than anything, I just felt more, I just felt eager to do more. I think I'm doing some stuff. And then I see all these wonderful people doing more and abundantly for their own space. It's just so beautiful. I really wanted to create the space that I feel like I was lacking. And so I did just that by actually bringing back my Active Minds chapter on my campus to become the largest student-led mental health organization on campus. My presentation is Mind in Progress, and we are empowering youth voices, placing youth advocates at the center of the conversation. I started writing letters to strangers, and it started as a small student club at my high school, but is today the largest global youth for youth mental health non-profit. We use volunteering and activism as an alternative coping mechanism as opposed to just relying on Western medicine. As a transgender immigrant from the Philippines, we never really have much representation, especially in the highest seats of power here in the United States. I hope it's just a start, you know, and not the last thing that we'll be seeing faces and voices of people who look and speak like me. I feel incredibly hopeful that we are going to emerge in a better place when it comes to our mental health. Together, I think we can change the culture on mental health. We can make people recognize that this is part of our overall human experience, it's part of health. And if we approach it with kindness and compassion, informed by science, you know, and backed with the right investments as a country, we can make sure care is available to everyone who needs it, and that's really our moral obligation. What inspired you to take part in this forum today? I truly feel like the whole reason I'm here and the whole reason I have success is to use that for something good. So I'm proud to say that I get to creatively be myself and come up with amazing ideas, music, films. It's so exciting for me, but at the end of the day, about 90% of my efforts, it really kind of leads back to Rare Impact from, you know, having somebody donate for us or signing on to do something that, you know, there be a, you know, a cause of helping mental health. So I think it's always just been ingrained into my language, and it's something that's important to me, so I make sure it's prioritized.