Curry and Chaat raises a spicy £240 for Mental Health Foundation
Award winning Leeds city centre Indian restaurant Bengal Brasserie provided the curry and special guest speaker Richard McCann served up the chat.
Curry & Chaat events were being held all over the country today as part of week long activities to raise money and profile for the charity which tackles mental health issues.
Stress is the theme of this year's Mental Health Awareness Week - May 14 to 20 - and the aim of Curry & Chaat was to get work colleagues together for a stress free lunch break to discuss the issue.
Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post staff decided to make the news by joining in.
They paid £5 each for a curry lunch, provided by Malik Dobir and his staff at Bengal Brasserie in the Merrion Centre, while they listened to world famous motivational speaker Richard McCann, founder of the iCanSpeak Academy.
He spoke about his own turbulent past, his coping mechanisms and how he turned his life around after tragic loss - his mum was the first victim of the notorious Yorkshire Ripper.
Richard spoke about why Mental Health Awareness Week was so important to him and why he donated his time to take part.
He said: "My sister took her life in 2007 due to her inability to deal with her emotionally problems, if we can help other people reach out and get help then I am more than happy to.
"It is great cause, my diary allowed me to do this and if I can do it and help then I absolutely will.
"It is important for all organisations to provide support as many people bring their problems to work but do not feel they can talk about it."
Joanna Sier, Media Sales Manager, who organised the Curry & Chaat event, gave a big shout out to colleagues Raza Zulfiqar, Corrie Wells and Zach Morman for their help.
She said: "We had a great time raising money and profile for The Mental Health Foundation.
"A big thank you to Richard who donated his time to speak to us, Bengal Brasserie for their donation of food and of course colleagues for investing their time and money to support this great cause.
"We raised £240 for Mental Health Foundation - absolutely fantastic!!
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