With the challenges that people regularly face, especially over the past year, it is easy to get overwhelmed and discouraged. Francesca Reicherter knows what it is like to be without hope and wants to help people through it.
Francesca Reicherter is a 22-year-old mental health advocate and the esteemed founder and president of “Inspiring My Generation Corporation,” a non-profit organization fighting the inconsistency in mental health awareness, support, and treatment accessibility. Since commencing operations, Francesca has worked tirelessly to launch several initiatives to reach a wider audience, such as the Normalize The Conversation Podcast, available for streaming on IGTV and YouTube.
She also championed an encouragement card program where over 1000 handmade cards have been donated to patients hospitalized in psych wards to provide support and encouragement, and a clothing line meant to empower and remind anyone wearing it to embrace their mental health while passing messages of support and community to people around them.
Determined to reach out to both adults and children alike, Francesca authored and published the “You Are Not Alone” Workbook – an interactive workbook specially designed for kids to help them develop a healthy coping toolbox and get in touch with their emotional wellness. The workbook includes coloring pages, word search, interactive exercises, and more to help bridge the communication gap between parents, child, and tutors through its interactive, guided check-in exercises on opening conversations and expressing true feelings followed by support and validation.
Francesca was motivated to author the book as she realized that the current spike in mental health illness makes it increasingly necessary to explain and show our youths that it is okay not to be okay. They do not have to be alone during the hard times as there are tools that can help them communicate their feelings when words fail them. To continue advocating for mental health awareness, Francesca donates a percentage of all the proceeds from the book are donated back to “Inspiring My Generation Corporation” to support mental health treatment and accessibility.
To celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month, Francesca launched a unique sweatshirt to spread awareness on the worrisome statistics of how one out of five individuals struggles with mental health issues and targets parents, educators, school boards, and every individual living with mental health disorders to pass on her message.
Francesca’s journey as a mental health advocate started when she was 12-years-old. She created a blog called “Inspiring My Generation,” where she shares goodwill messages with her peers and inspires them to live their life to the fullest in happiness and kindness toward themselves and others.
In 2019, she was overwhelmed with life, lost hope, and attempted suicide and only found the will to live again after her godfather, Uncle Marc, talked her through her feelings and mental health. Unfortunately, she lost Uncle Marc to suicide twenty-seven days later. Badly shaken by the tragic incident, she ended up in a psych ward for a week. She realized that many people were suffering from mental-health-related issues with little or no form of educational support, emotional support, or financial support. Since then, she took up the mantle with a solemn vow to be the voice for those who lost theirs to suicide and for those people struggling and cannot speak up for themselves.
In March 2020, on her godfather’s birthday, she launched “Inspiring My Generation Corporation” in his honor. Francesca Reicherter wants to continue her mental health advocacy while leading her non-profit organization to a global brand in the coming years. She also wants to continue the interactions with the school system as mental health education is made readily available to the next generation and grow her podcast into a talk show where the stigma about mental health can become a past.
