World Mental Health Day in Sagunto: activities on 13 and 16 October
Sagunto City Council's Social Services department is holding activities on Tuesday 13 and Friday 16 October at the Casal Jove (youth centre) in Puerto de Sagunto for World Mental Health Day, focused on children.
The city's mental health programme fits into one calendar week: two fixed-time events, on Tuesday 13 and Friday 16 October, and exhibitions that can be visited from Tuesday to Saturday. Almost everything happens at the Casal Jove (youth centre) in Puerto de Sagunto (coastal district). The official date, Saturday 10, falls a few days earlier. Social Services has placed children at the centre, under the phrase 'A veces, la cabeza me pesa' (Sometimes my head feels heavy). The council explains that it wants to give visibility to people who suffer psychosocially, try out ways to support them and head off in time difficulties that could get worse.
Day by day, the agenda looks like this. On Tuesday 13, at 19:00, Social Services councillor Nuria Carbó opens Mental Health Week, and then the audience will be shown how Ubú was put together, a theatre workshop of SASEM (the service for care and follow-up of people with a serious mental health problem) run by Teatres de la Llum. At 19:45 two exhibitions open. On Wednesday 14 and Thursday 15 the programme lists no events, only the open exhibitions. On Friday 16, at 18:30, there is a presentation and a film. Saturday 17 is the last day to see the exhibitions.
Huellas (Traces), in the exhibition room of the port-district centre, gathers ceramics made at SASEM. The other show takes its name from the slogan and comes from a workshop last school year in which primary pupils learned to recognise and name sadness, fear and shame. Their drawings, from year 3 of CEIP Vilamar and year 4 of CEIP María Yocasta, can be seen in the window display. Anyone who prefers Sagunto town will find at the Casal Jove de Sagunt those of year 3 of CEIP Ausiàs March and years 3 and 4 of CEIP Cronista Chabret. The exhibitions are open from Tuesday to Friday, 9:00 to 21:00, and on Saturday, 9:00 to 14:00 and 16:00 to 21:00. There is no need to attend the opening to see them.
The closing comes on Friday 16, when the association APROSAM (Pro Mental Health Association of Camp de Morvedre) announces its activities in the assembly hall of the Casal Jove in Puerto de Sagunto. Then Votemos, by Santiago Requejo, is screened, a film about coexistence in a block of neighbours after a tenant with mental health difficulties arrives. Anyone with only one free evening can choose between the theatre and exhibitions on Tuesday, or the presentation and film on Friday.
For Carbó, the series serves three purposes: remind people that emotional wellbeing counts, dismantle stigma and stress that mental health is a component of general health and quality of life. She also wants to bring information and prevention to residents and to recognise the professional teams, organisations and associations that support those affected and their families every day.
The date has its own history. The WHO defines it as a day to raise awareness of these problems and mobilise support, and it was first observed on 10 October 1992, on the initiative of the World Federation for Mental Health. Its 2026 slogan is 'Lived experiences heard: real voices, real change'. Sagunto bets on another route, children's drawing, and the WHO explains why childhood and adolescence deserve attention: one in seven young people aged 10 to 19 worldwide has a mental disorder, and these disorders account for 15% of the burden of disease in that age group.
SASEM is not new to public space either. According to elperiodic.com in May 2026, its users planted flowers at the Centre Voramar in Puerto de Sagunto in order to, in the councillor's department's words, change stigma and prejudice. With Ubú and Huellas, the service's work now reaches the stage and the exhibition room.
APROSAM has had unanimous political backing before. In December 2017 all groups in the Sagunto plenary session approved a motion supporting its request to improve access to public services for people with serious mental illness. That text noted that Sagunto Hospital then had only nine beds to treat them. It is a 2017 figure, not a picture of today.
According to aytosagunto.es and elperiodic.com, with additional data from the WHO, Wikipedia and the December 2017 city council plenary session.