Students heard from The Resilience Project founder Hugh van Cuylenburg who visited Warrnambool as part of the Student Leaders’ Congress.

Mr van Cuylenburg spoke about his sister Georgia’s mental health issues and his teaching experiences in India to highlight the importance of positive mental health strategies.

He said 65 per cent of adolescents do not seek help for mental illness and encouraged children if they felt “really worried and stressed all the time” or “sad and you don’t know why” to tell someone.

Mr van Cuylenburg spoke about empathy, gratitude and compassion, using personal anecdotes and photos to show how happy and grateful children in developing countries are.

“Australian people are seven times more likely to notice the negative, that’s the way our brains work,” he said.

“We notice the bad things. We’re not good at noticing the good things. We need to be better, this guy (an Indian man whose body was disfigured) taught me that it’s possible. “

He encouraged students to write down three things daily that went well to promote gratitude. “Do you know what happens? You become a much more grateful person. You become a much happier person and good leaders are happy people. If people are to follow you, they have to like you. If they don’t like you, they’re not going to follow you.”

He also reassured them that making mistakes was part of life. “It’s okay to fail. As leaders you guys know you’re going to fail, because every time you fail you learn.”

Emmanuel College students Molly Farley and William McNeil said the presentation was inspiring. “It made us open our minds up a bit more to other people,” Molly said.

The students also heard from 2017 Australian Local Hero Vicki Jellie who congress co-ordinator Simon Perry said was “a local leader who has made a big difference in the community.”

Participants will now work together to devise projects to make a difference to mental health and wellbeing in their school or community. The groups will present their projects in August.