UCD students mask themselves on campus as part of mental health campaign

The UCD-based campaign took place on Thursday morning.

20 students walked silently to the UCD concourse from the Students’ Union and stood along it without speaking or moving from 1pm-2pm as students, staff and visitors looked on. This comes following a lengthy campaign that saw posters with the number 392 on them placed all across the college's campus. It remains unclear why masks were involved with the walk, why those involved remained "still and silent" or what the significance of the number 392 is.

Sadhbh O’Flaherty, UCD Students’ Union Mental Health Coordinator had this to say to JOE about the campaign:

"Brainstorming for this campaign began back in February and it has been under construction ever since. Project 392 started out as small-scale, one-off demonstration but has grown into a much larger and potentially more long-term campaign.

"We created a black tile with the number 392 on it which was launched across multiple social media platforms on Wednesday, 3 April with the aim of getting people talking about the number.

"By Thursday, the vast majority of people around UCD had seen the number 392 and those who hadn’t soon did with the introduction of posters of the same style all around campus. It wasn’t long before 392 spread outside of UCD.

"A demonstration took place today on campus and UCD students stood still and silent in a line in the middle of UCD campus wearing the number 392. They did not interact, and they did not answer questions and emphasis was put on this demonstration being a respectful event."

Keeping the final details of the campaign under wraps, O'Flaherty went on to say that they will not reveal what the 392 means until Monday, 15 April, urging people to keep an eye on the UCDSU social media to learn more.