At just 23 years of age, Lydia has achieved more than most do in a lifetime but has also experienced great hardship, which has led her down the path of mental health and created a fierce dedication for helping people in her community. 

As a young girl her family fled from Sierra Leone due to the persecutions of Christians at the time, leaving behind her dad who sacrificed his own life for their safety and residing in a refugee camp in Guinea.

Her arrival in Australia was met with mixed emotions as she was extremely connected to her dad and was now left to process this loss for her family to escape a war-torn country and live a better life.

It wasn’t until many years later at the age of 17 Lydia received a jolting phone call from the hospital about her sister that her eyes were opened to the mental health struggles her family had been experiencing but didn’t understand due to little knowledge and awareness.  

“I grew up in a family where mental health wasn’t a thing, you know. If you were struggling with something, it was because you aren’t doing enough or you’re not keeping yourself busy. A lot of things I was experiencing, I didn’t know there was a name for it, I didn’t know about ‘anxiety’ or ‘depression’ or a ‘panic attack’.”

“My sister was going through post-partum depression, and I didn’t know how to have conversations surrounding how to help her and support her and this sparked my interest in exploring the mental health field,” she said.

Lydia had begun studying biomedical science with the intention of becoming a doctor but found herself drawn to psychology. This led her to commence a double degree and she loved exploring the interconnectedness between behaviour, development and neuroscience with biomedicine.

“You kind of figure out what’s going good with the body and then you learn in psychology what happens when the body isn’t functioning the way it’s supposed to be on that psychological level” she said.

During university Lydia got her first full-time position at 18 years of age, which was initially in disability before moving into an African support worker role. From there, she began working for a not-for-profit that helped individuals from African communities, which stemmed from online debates she was having during Covid.

“You come to a country, and you want a better life and there’s some people who don’t agree with that and some who just don’t care about that.”

“I battled with that a lot during lockdowns. I had debates with people regarding religion and immigrants… that sparked my interest to wanting to help my community” she said.

This role saw her providing support in communities, prisons, detention centers and schools, including school-based events centered around embracing and understanding culture.

“We would run events tailored towards embracing who you are as an African, as an Australian and as an African-Australian individual, and about identity and that you don’t have to pick, you can be both and its okay to be both.”

“We did a lot of private schools in terms of accepting hair, which was a big thing… we have one of the courses where we let them experiment with our hair, to braid our hair, to wash our hair – so that kind of gave them insight that we can’t wake up and just brush it down and put it in a slicky ponytail – it takes hours” she said.

Fast forward to 2023 and Lydia had become incredibly burnt out from the cultural load, countless hours of volunteer work and the pressures of receiving further funding, which is what led her to finding her role as a Recovery Support Worker at RFQ and prioritising her own mental health and self-care.

“It’s taken a very long time for me to take care of myself… one thing I got from my mum is you’re always giving, and you’re giving even from an empty cup.”

“Now I turn off my phone when I get out of the office and its not to say I don’t care, but it’s about wanting to show up as my best self”.

The future looks bright for Lydia who sees herself one day moving into more of an advocacy role in the public and mental health sector, but for now she’s busy looking after our Hospital to Home clients, managing a wedding business and finishing her Masters in Public Health.

When asked about the best piece of advice she’s ever been given, her answer beautifully encompasses her own lived experience and the work she does today.

“When you haven’t seen, you cannot truly give, but when your eyes see all that you need to see, that’s how you know what needs to be given.”