OLA – Studying Mental Health in Young People

Depression and anxiety are major causes of disability worldwide, especially during adolescence when prevalence surges. This risk increases for individuals facing stressors like conflict, poverty, social isolation, trauma, displacement, and violence—factors often more prevalent in urban areas.

Despite the significant impact of these conditions, many young people remain resilient, with up to 60% recovering within a year. This highlights the importance of identifying factors that protect against or promote recovery from these disorders.

OLA – Building Resilience is a 5-year research project studying factors that prevent or aid recovery from depression and anxiety in urban youth across Bogotá (Colombia), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and Lima (Peru). The findings aim to contribute with the development of new approaches and interventions for these conditions.

The OLA project uses diverse methods, including interviews, longitudinal studies, and case studies. In partnership with Latin American arts organizations—Fundación Nacional Batuta (Bogotá), Fundación Crear Vale la Pena (Buenos Aires), and Teatro La Plaza (Lima)—People’s Palace Projects leads the arts-based activities within the initiative.

Creative workshops and laboratories open up discussions with adolescents and young people about their relationships and use of resources. For the first phase of the project, we ran arts-based workshops in each city. They explored attitudes and perceptions about depression and anxiety in young people, in order to reveal individual, social and contextual resilience factors and the significance of different clinical and non-clinical resources in their own recovery from depression and/or anxiety. Read more here.

We have also worked alongside researchers and partner organisations to assess the impact of artistic/creative workshops as a potential intervention for young people. Each of the partner arts organizations set up a series of workshops with selected young people from the main cohort study. Publications with the findings from these studies will be ready shortly. 

In September 2023, PPP’s director Paul Heritage delivered a workshop to young people in Lima, Peru, using the Theatre of the Oppressed- Augusto Boal’s methodology. 

Inspired by the preliminary findings of the OLA project and aiming to broaden its impact, we launched the Young Ambassadors Programme in 2024. This initiative encourages young people to explore how the arts can play a role in supporting their mental health and recovery. 

In collaboration with our partner arts organisations, we selected nine Young Ambassadors—three from each city involved in the project—to design and deliver arts-based workshops and performances. These activities aim to help other young people reflect on and discuss their mental health, while also engaging with the initial findings of the OLA study. 

The Young Ambassadors have already piloted projects in each city, reaching over 2,000 young people so far. 

In this proccess, PPP produced the recording of the short film Walking our Way/Caminar Distinto. The film is a dynamic and creative documentary that combines the lived experiences of our nine Young Ambassadors (YAs) and highlights how arts-based methodologies allow for nuanced and personal explorations of mental health. 

We hope the film will play a key role in promoting peer-led sharing and discussion events within educational and community settings, sharing experiences in arts and mental health both within and beyond Latin America. It can be used as a catalyst for change within discussions of mental health in young people globally. 

The film is being screened in Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Lima, Rio de Janeiro and Santiago de Chile.  At the screenings, the young ambassadors not only present the process and context of OLA and the documentary, but also encourage young audiences to engage in discussions about mental health that the film raises.  

Making this documentary with the YAs and sharing it through screenings in each city with educational, arts and community organisations is intended to create a valuable resource to share the knowledge developed through OLA with wider communities, audiences and stakeholders. It connect young people, challenge stigma through shared experiences and draw attention to mental health challenges in specific regions. The film also act as an educational tool that we hope leads to changes in existing policies to support young people’s mental health.