Music streaming service Spotify has partnered with UK suicide-awareness movement CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) to provide specialised content in support of Mental Health Awareness Week, taking place across May 18th-24th. Creating a new platform called the Mental Health Awareness Hub, Spotify will today be launching an original playlist as well as plenty of bespoke podcast content. Relating to the theme of ‘kindness,’ the platform’s regular playlist Who We Be, celebrating “the UK’s biggest Hip-Hop, Afrobeat, Dancehall and R&B“ hits, will feature accompanying video material from a variety of UK artists such as Tinie Tempah, Che Lingo, Ray BLK, Ms Banks and Harry Pinero, among many others.

Quoted in an interview with Music Week, Spotify’s UK and Ireland Managing Director Tom Connaughton explains what he hopes to achieve with this new partnership: “We hope to help create further awareness about Mental Health Awareness Week and the incredible work CALM continues to do. We hope to play our role in encouraging more people to talk freely and openly about mental health, which has never been more important than it is right now.”

According to CALM’s mission statement, suicide is the biggest killer of men in the UK below the age of 45 and responsible for 18 fatalities every day. Their service offers a 24/7 contact point – via webchat or through a confidential helpline – for anyone struggling to cope with life’s heavier issues.

It’s #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek and we’ve teamed up with @SpotifyUK to bring you a whole host of dedicated (and brilliant) playlists and podcasts from some of your favourite creators.

Get the lowdown on what's happening here: https://t.co/ENeX4bC7NN pic.twitter.com/NO43q2yW0b

— CALM (@theCALMzone) May 18, 2020

Meanwhile, tailoring their content for Mental Health Awareness Week 2020, Spotify’s own in-house podcast Wake Up / Wind Down, hosted by Dublin-based author Niall Breslin, will feature daily content approaching issues relating to mental well-being in conjunction with the newly launched Daily Wellness assortment of podcasts and music, helping users through their darker days.

Responding to today’s opening of Mental Health Awareness Week, Breslin took to Twitter to share his own reasons for supporting the cause: “It’s important to bring awareness to conversation, but we must also bring awareness to the need for our governments to start investing in this area with far more positive intent. Ireland still only spends 6% of health budget on mental health.”

Here’s hoping that this will be the beginning of an important change.