First-year student is a mental health advocate
At 16, Idania Rodriguez founded a nonprofit information hub and aims to “push her mission” at Carolina.
From a young age, Idania Rodriguez understood just how important it was to be confident, outspoken and to advocate for herself and others.
Rodriguez learned from watching her parents fight to build a new life for their three children. Moving from Puerto Rico to Tampa, Florida, wasn’t an easy transition. At times, her family struggled to make ends meet, but their strength and perseverance never wavered.
From their example, Rodriguez learned how to harness her own voice — and to use it to help people around her.
Rodriguez, a first-year Carolina student, founded the nonprofit Mental H2O when she was 16. Inspired by the mental health issues of her peers — especially during the COVID-19 pandemic — Rodriguez sought to create an information hub designed by youth, for youth.
“During school, I realized that sometimes mental health is not really talked about,” Rodriguez said. “There would be students that were struggling in silence or that were afraid to come out and say their feelings because they were afraid of how an adult would take that information.
“I myself struggled with my own mental health issues and realized that it’s really difficult to receive help in school. That’s when I started to realize that we had a gap to fill, and if no adult was going to take a stand, I knew that I had to.”
Determined to make a difference, Rodriguez pored over online resources about mental health and, in the process, connected with fellow mental health advocate and current Kenan-Flagler Business School student Garrett Livingston.
Together, Rodriguez and Livingston worked through the process of registering Mental H2O as a 501(c)(3) organization and creating a website, with Rodriguez serving as president and Livingston as CEO.
The Mental H2O website started small. Rodriguez wrote most of the site’s articles at first, coming home from school around 4 p.m. and working deep into the evening. Before long, Rodriguez rallied about 50 of her classmates to contribute, then started collaborating with her local school board in Hillsborough County. Now the site has more than 100 volunteers worldwide and has awarded more than 1,000 service hours.
The Mental H2O website is filled with mental health resources, tips and tools – all curated by students.
“Every single resource on there is actually created by students for students, and we’re very cautious about what we put on the site,” Rodriguez said. “I know that it can be really difficult to receive help. Making sure it is culturally sensitive and also addressing the needs of the students was very important from the beginning.”
The work is only getting started. Emboldened by the feedback she’s received and the impact Mental H2O has made on her Tampa community, Rodriguez aims to sharpen her skills at Carolina and grow into even more of a leader in the mental health space.
Rodriguez intends to apply to the Gillings School of Global Public Health and major in health policy and management. She said she chose to study at Carolina in part because of the school’s commitment to student wellness.
“I didn’t want to go to a college that did not prioritize student needs or that did not prioritize student wellness,” Rodriguez said.
“UNC definitely does do that. And that’s why I feel like I can drive a bigger audience, and I can utilize what UNC has to offer to further push my mission of helping students with their mental health.”
