Unbreakable Farmer, Beautiful Bogan will be at mental health expo

This story is free to read. Help Murray Bridge News tell more stories like this by subscribing today.

Unbreakable Farmer Warren Davies and Beautiful Bogan Marc Ryan have been announced as special guests at this year’s Murray Bridge Mental Health and Wellbeing Expo.

Everyone in the community is invited to head along to Murray Bridge Performing Arts and Function Centre between 10am and 3pm on October 10 for a free day of positivity, activities, food and drink.

Helpful local organisations will have stalls; you’ll be able to have a cuppa and a chat, a massage, get your face painted and enter a raffle.

There’ll even be a Sisu health station where you can get your height, weight, blood pressure, heart rate, body fat and BMI measured, free of charge.

But the two key speakers are likely to be a big drawcard, too.

As the Unbreakable Farmer, Mr Davies has travelled around Australia, sharing his story of resilience, persistence and determination.

After moving from Melbourne to rural Victoria and buying a farm in his early 20s, he quickly found himself struggling with high interest rates, low commodity prices, floods and drought.

But, as his stage name suggests, he didn’t break.

Now, as a speaker, he aims to help others tap into the same strength he found during tough times.

Mr Ryan, the Beautiful Bogan, shot to fame in the ABC TV series You Can’t Ask That, and has since taken his mix of comedy and life-affirming messages on tour around the country.

He aims to normalise conversations about mental health, letting people know they are not alone while drawing on his own experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal thoughts.

Behind the scenes, a new lead agency takes over

This year’s expo will be the first to be organised by mental health service iReach, which has taken over from disability service provider Genuine Support Services Australia.

iReach’s Bronwyn Heard said her focus would be making people aware of the local service providers who were here to help them, and letting them know how to go about accessing those services.

This year’s expo would be more interactive, she said, and less like a presentation that you had to sit and watch.

“We’ll only have a couple of segments up on the stage,” she said.

“The rest of the time we’ll allow people to walk around and talk to services … or sit down, there’ll be prompts on tables to start conversations.”

GSSA’s Gabby Mackenzie said the expo was a wholesome experience she would recommend to anyone.

“On the day you really connect with people from all walks of life,” she said.

• Attend the expo: Visit Murray Bridge Performing Arts and Function Centre from 10am-3pm on October 10.
• Get help: Talk to your GP; find a local service that suits you at murraymallee.servicesdirectory.org.au; call Lifeline on 13 11 14; or, in an emergency, call 000.