Welcome to Proper Mental Episode 14!
This week my guest is Shareefa J!
Shareefa J is a presenter, model and mental health campaigner. She is at the forefront of promoting body positivity and race diversity in the fashion and advertising space.
A couple of years ago, Shareefa used the hashtag #UOKHUN to connect with her followers and encourage them to speak up about how they were feeling and the overwhelming response to this led her to contact CALM and eventually become one of their mental health ambassadors.
She is also a huge advocate for the power of running and does a lot of work to encourage everyone who wants to be a runner to give it a go regardless of gender, size or any other reason that puts people off going for a run. She has featured on the cover of several running magazines to spread this message.
Shareefa and I chat about the need for a mental health A&E, the good and the bad bits of social media, emotional maintenance and the long-term side effects of the pandemic on mental health.
Shareefa’s positivity about everything is really infectious and it was a lot of fun to chat to her! We cover an amazing number of topics during the conversation and it was great for me to learn a bit about the body positivity movement and the modelling industry as neither of these things were previously on my radar.
You can connect with Shareefa via Instagram @shareefa_J and @shine4diversity.
You can also connect with CALM via social media @calmzone or read about their work with Shareefa at this link:
You can connect with me and the podcast @propermentalpodcast and I’d love to hear what you thought of this, or any other episodes! I’m always happy to chat.
Thanks for listening! Enjoy!