Billie Myers Announces Launch of LGBT Youth Depression Awareness Project
If there’s one that’s going to make singer songwriter Billie Myers uncomfortable it’s people praising her for her LGBT activism work and dedication to raising public awareness on depression and suicide prevention. Well if you’re reading this whilst sipping cocktails by your pool Ms Myers prepare to feel very awkward as Queeried is about to gush…
Returning to mainstream public attention with the release of new third album, Tea and Sympathy, Billie Myers has not only shown the power of social media networks like Twitter and Facebook for promotional purposes, but also for selflessly raising awareness of the issues most close to her heart, and this September she will be going even further by launching, as part of “Back to school” month, her Pepsi Refresh Challenge project.
Acting as a spokesperson for the JED Foundation - the leading nonprofit organization addressing issues related to mental health and suicide in the college population. Billie will be joining the likes of Pete Wentz and Mary J. Blige in helping JED’s ongoing fight against depression and suicide prevention, and you’re going to find it hard to find someone more committed to this issue than Billie.
Why? Because Billie Myers is a woman who knows all too well about these issues, having been diagnosed with depression herself . Incredibly lucky to have such supportive people around her, Myers is now determined that others have the information they need to help others, with the Pepis Refresh Challenge project acting to educate people about what depression is, how to recognize the warning signs, how to overcome it, shed light on how to help people suffering from depression – and overall, promote suicide prevention among young people.
And she’s focusing her efforts on one group that is most at risk, the LGBT community, a group that according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services equals “as many as 30% of completed youth suicides each year” because they feel they are “better off dead than gay”.
A woman who has faced many difficulties in her life that include being abandoned by her mother at an orphange at ages four, being the victim of racial and reverse discrimination for being a mixed race child and having to contend, like so many artists these days, with being an international superstar one day then falling into anonymity the next, Billie Myers has proven herself to be an extraordinary brave and courageous woman and this September it’s time for all of us to give that little bit back by making sure her Pepsi Refresh Project for the Jed Foundation is the huge success it deserves to be.
