Three compelling speakers will add their voices to vital conversations about suicide and mental health at this year's Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice on June 21.
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Prominent journalist and six-time Walkley Award winner Kerry O'Brien will join federal Labor MP and the party's Indigenous Australians minister Linda Burney, and well-known commentator on gender equality and mental health Georgie Dent on stage at Albury's QE11 Square.
Organisers are thrilled the event, in its ninth year, is set to return in a physical format after COVID-19 restrictions saw the 2020 Solstice streamed online in a "virtual" forum that connected to more than 25,000 people.
Co-founders Annette and Stuart Baker said last year's event provided the opportunity to share the heart-lifting performances and speeches with communities across the country and even globally.
"After 2020, we didn't want geographical boundaries getting in the way of sharing our Winter Solstice far and wide so the event will again be live-streamed this year," Mrs Baker said.
Mr Baker believes there is "finally" recognition by governments "that our mental health system is ill-equipped to cope with what's occurring".
The recent Victorian government budget commitment to invest a record $3.8 billion into mental health hot on the heels of the final report from the state's royal commission is welcome "but it's been a long time coming", he said.
"This year more than ever it's important to hold this event to remember those who aren't here and to come together as a community to provide comfort, solace and hope to those left behind," Mr Baker said.
This year's speakers all have a deeply personal understanding of the issues of mental health and suicide, according to Mrs Baker.
"We are just absolutely amazed to have Linda (Burney) coming - she is such an important voice both as a politician and person with lived experience," she said.
"Georgie Dent is an eloquent speaker in relation to her own mental health battle and where that took her - which was into a psychiatric institution - resulting in a book about how she broke."
And to have on board the esteemed Kerry O'Brien - a journalist who spent 28 years as a national current affairs television presenter and interviewer - "lends an empathy and perspective unique to the issues we care about".
