May 7 is Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day, Childhood Depression Awareness Day, and World AIDS Day. Over the centuries, May 7 entered the history of mankind with a series of events that left their mark on politics, science, culture and technology.
Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day
This is an important date that focuses attention on one of the most delicate and at the same time the most critical aspects of child development. This day was created not for formalities, but for a sincere conversation about problems that are still too often ignored by society: anxiety, depression, bullying, post-traumatic stress, behavioral disorders, emotional exhaustion. According to official WHO statistics, every fifth child in the world has at least one of the mental disorders, and in countries experiencing war or social crises, this rate increases almost twice.
Today, Ukraine is one of the countries where children’s mental health has become an area of special concern. Full-scale war, forced resettlement, loss of relatives, separation from parents, stress of adaptation in new countries or basements, sirens and explosions – all this does not pass without a trace. According to UNICEF estimates, about 1.5 million Ukrainian children need psychological help. And in fact, there are many more of them, because not all symptoms are immediately noticeable, and not all children know how or can say that their soul is not hurting, but their body.
On Awareness Day, you should not only talk about the problem, but also listen to your children, your students, younger brothers and sisters. It is important to be able to notice the signals: changes in behavior, apathy, irritability, loss of interest in usual things, problems with sleep or eating. Psychologists emphasize that children do not have “mental endurance”, they adapt at the expense of their own internal resources, which are often exhausted without the support of adults. And here the main thing is to be close not only physically, but also emotionally.
Interesting facts
Scientists from the University of Cambridge have proven that emotional security in childhood directly affects resistance to anxiety disorders in adulthood. Children whose parents allowed them to talk freely about their feelings had lower levels of stress during puberty.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, about 75% of chronic mental disorders in adults begin before the age of 24, and almost half – before the age of 14.
Emergency psychiatric care for children in Europe has been developing as a separate field only since the 1990s. Before this, the child’s problem was often seen as bad behavior or such a character.
In Japan, there are government programs of “shadow watchers”: specially trained adults in schools and public spaces record signs of emotional alienation or depression in children and refer them to school psychologists.
In some countries—notably Finland, Norway, and Canada—schools offer weekly lessons on emotional intelligence. They are conducted by both psychologists and class teachers, teaching children to talk about their own emotions, conflicts, fears, and desires.
In 2022, The Lancet Psychiatry published a study that found that children who experienced traumatic events without access to psychological help were 2.5 times more likely to self-harm as teenagers.
Children’s Depression Awareness Day
The world is increasingly talking about childhood depression not as a rare psychological anomaly, but as a real problem that affects millions of children. That’s why Childhood Depression Awareness Day is celebrated every May, an event designed to draw attention to this little-noticed but profoundly devastating phenomenon.
Depression in a child is a complex mental illness that changes the perception of the world, undermines self-esteem, paralyzes the will and takes away joy even in everyday things. And the worst thing is that it often goes unnoticed in children. Parents explain this by closedness of character or age. But behind this can be hidden symptoms of real depression, which without support turns into a serious danger.
According to UNICEF, at least 10-20% of children and adolescents in the world face mental disorders every year, most of which are of a depressive nature. At the same time, only less than a third receive professional help. In Ukraine, the situation is also complicated by war, evacuation, severance of family ties, loss of homes, schools, and social ties. In such conditions, childhood depression becomes not an exception, but a commonplace.
Childhood Depression Awareness Day is primarily a reason to break the silence. A child, unlike an adult, has no words to describe his inner pain. She often won’t say, “I’m depressed,” she’ll just start getting sick more often, lose interest in friends, draw gloomy pictures, sleep with a toy, even though she’s already a teenager, avoid mirrors, stop asking for anything, even food.
Psychologists emphasize: if for more than two weeks the child shows signs such as apathy, anxiety, sleep or appetite disturbances, reluctance to communicate, pessimism, it is worth seeking help from a specialist. This is not a sign of weakness, but rather a step towards strength.
Interesting facts
Depression in children can be manifested not by sadness, but by aggression. Many parents turn to psychiatrists with the problem of a “naughty” child, although the real reason is a deep emotional emptiness.
The first manifestations of depression can appear already at the age of 3-5 years. The American Psychiatric Association has documented cases of severe forms of depression in preschool children, especially in conditions of emotional abuse or loss of parental attention.
Teenagers with depression have a 5 times higher risk of suicidal thoughts. According to studies in Europe and the USA, 70% of teenagers who committed suicide had diagnosed or undiagnosed depression.
Physical symptoms are frequent signs of childhood depression. Abdominal pain, headache, constant fatigue without medical reasons – all this can be psychosomatic.
In Finland, there are public crisis centers where every child can talk to a psychologist anonymously by phone or online. All schools have a full-time psychotherapist.
It is known that children in boarding schools or without a stable family are three times more likely to develop depression. However, staying in a toxic family for a long time can have no less harmful effects than orphanhood.
In 2023, more than 100 thousand were recorded. appeals from Ukrainian children to psychological help platforms, among which one in three related to symptoms of depression.
World AIDS Orphans Day
This initiative was born as the voice of those who are least heard: children who have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS. This day is not a formal date on the UN calendar, but it has deep moral weight. It was launched by the French humanitarian movement Aide et Action in 2002 to draw attention to a tragic, rarely mentioned dimension of the epidemic: child orphanhood as a result of the deadly infection.
According to UNICEF, there are currently more than 13.8 million children in the world who have lost at least one parent due to HIV/AIDS. The vast majority of them are in sub-Saharan Africa, but the problem persists in other parts of the world, including Ukraine, where HIV status is still a taboo subject.
After the death of their parents, these children often lose not only relatives, but also access to education, medical care, and emotional support. Many are kicked out of their homes due to stigma, denied basic rights, considered “dangerous” or “infected” – even if they themselves are HIV-negative. AIDS orphans are more often victims of violence, fall into sexual slavery, forced to work or live on the streets.
This day is a chance to talk about the need not only to treat HIV-positive people, but also to systematically support children who were left alone after the tragedy. Social services, educational institutions, the medical system, all must be part of a responsible response to the problem of orphanhood caused by the epidemic.
Interesting facts
In Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa and Lesotho, more than 20% of all children are orphaned by HIV/AIDS.
About 80% of AIDS orphans do not live in boarding schools, but with relatives, most often with grandmothers, who themselves often do not have access to pensions or medical care.
According to UNAIDS, in many countries AIDS orphans lose their right to education: they are forced to work to feed their younger brothers and sisters.
Stigmatization and fear of HIV lead to the fact that even in schools or hospitals, these children are isolated, not allowed to join groups, and avoid contact.
In some regions of Africa, orphaned children form so-called “child households”, where older children aged 12-15 take on the role of parents for younger siblings.
Despite the progress in the fight against HIV, the level of infection among children in some countries remains high: about 850 children are infected every day in the world, and more than 310 thousand every year.
In 2023, in Ukraine, according to the Center for Public Health, more than 1,300 children were under social support due to the loss of parents with HIV status, and more than 250 of them remained orphans.
Historical events on this day
1927 — The VARIG airline was established in Brazil, which later became the largest air carrier in Latin America, a symbol of technical progress and regional integration.
1937 — Germany and Italy announced the creation of a strategic military-political alliance, which went down in history as the “Rome-Berlin Axis” — one of the key elements of the pre-war world confrontation.
1945 — At 2:41 a.m., the act of unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany was signed at the Allied headquarters in Reims, effectively ending World War II in Europe.
1946 — The company “Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo” appeared in the capital of Japan, which later turned into the world brand – Sony. This was the beginning of the global technological revolution made in Japan.
1954 — The United States of America, France, and Great Britain announced their refusal to accept the Soviet Union into the ranks of NATO, which became an important step in the formation of a bipolar world.
1956 — The Minister of Health of Great Britain refused to launch an anti-nicotine campaign, explaining it by the lack of convincing evidence about the harmfulness of tobacco — today this position is perceived as a historical paradox.
1995 — The National Bank of Ukraine put into circulation a commemorative coin with a denomination of 200,000 rubles — one of the bright symbols of the hyperinflationary period and a harbinger of monetary reform.
1996 — Within the framework of the Cannes Film Festival, the premiere of Luc Besson’s fantasy film “The Fifth Element” took place, which became a cult in the science fiction genre and set a new aesthetic for cinema in the 1990s.
1999 — The Pope made a historic visit to Romania, which became the first example of a pontiff visiting an Orthodox country since the Great Schism of Christianity in 1054.
2008 — At 11:00 a.m. Kyiv time, an earthquake with a magnitude of 3 occurred in the area of Zmiiny Island in the Black Sea. Although the tremors were weak, they were felt by residents of Odessa and coastal areas.
2016 — In Poltava, the world’s first full-fledged monument to Hetman Ivan Mazepa was opened – a symbol of national revival, which was banned in the Soviet narrative for decades.
