By Krystian Shaw
The month of October was very exciting for me. I won the WOW award.
WOW stands for “Widening Our World.” Community Living BC gives out this prestigious Award to those who make a difference in their community, promoting inclusion. My goal is to stomp out stigma and discrimination for anyone who happens to be different within society.
My best friend Ben nominated me this year. Only 5 nominated people within BC are chosen each year and I was honored to be one of them for 2019.
To celebrate Community Inclusion Month, I flew David Granirer into Kamloops from Vancouver to teach us standup comedy, where we can poke fun at our mental health issues as a way to bring awareness to such challenges.
David is a counsellor, a comic and suffers from Depression himself. He incorporated his challenges into his own comedy and teaches comedy to others who also has mental health issues, since laughter can be so therapeutic. We performed our routines on October 10th, which was “World Mental Health Day.” We rented a community Hall and sold tickets for the event. We performed in front of a sold-out crowd.
I had the WOW award presented to me by Lisa from CLBC in the Kelowna office at the end of the comedy performance. The trophy is beautiful with my name and inscription engraved on it. It was like winning an academy award. I’ll treasure it for life.
You can check out David’s website at: http://www.standupformentalhealth.com
