Tommy Cummins firmly believes that if you bottle things up, bad things happen.
The 19-year-old University of Otago commerce student said young men often felt pressured to ‘‘tough it out’’ in silence when mental health issues arose.
‘‘It’s like a pressure cooker, and things always end up worse if you don’t deal with them before it explodes.’’
So he and a group of five other Otago commerce students have teamed up to raise money for men’s mental health charity Lads Without Labels.
They will play four full rounds of golf at St Clair Golf Club next Thursday.
‘‘That’s 72 holes in about 16 hours - I think we’ll be feeling that the next day.’’
Men were often ill-equipped to take the first step in supporting their wellbeing, and he had seen many students in challenging situations, with few resources and support systems.
He said he had a couple of friends who struggled to settle into their first year of university, being on their own without support from their family.
‘‘They felt like they were in over their head at uni because they didn’t have anyone to talk to.
‘‘Lads Without Labels has lots of resources and contacts to help people in that situation.
‘‘It’s an ambulance at the top of the cliff, rather than at the bottom.’’
He said the fundraising initiative came about because the six of them were all in the same Management 252 paper.
‘‘As part of that paper, we have to do a social action project.
‘‘A couple of us play golf, so we decided to mix a bit of fun in with our work making money for the Lads Without Labels men’s mental health charity.’’
Mr Cummins said the initiative had already raised nearly $4000 on a Givealittle page, titled swinging-for-support.
‘‘We’re really stoked with what we’ve done so far.
‘‘We set the target at $5000, not expecting to get anywhere near it. Now I think we could go even higher.’’
