Students around Sheffield have been taking part in a frosty challenge to raise money and awareness for mental health.

Members of the Mental Illness Needs Discussion club in The University of South Carolina have re-ignited the infamous Ice Bucket Challenge of 2014 that originally raised awareness for Moto Neurone disease.

Matthew Dobson, 19, a student at University of Sheffield said: “I dunked myself in really cold water and I posted it publicly as well as nominating a few of my friends to do the same.

“I think mental health is very important and representing it publicly is always important and beneficial to a lot of people”.

The trend was started when students at the University of South Carolina’s Mental Illness Needs Discussion Club and the charity Active Minds teamed up to post a video of one of the students taking part in the challenge, which then proceeded to gain traction on social media sites like ‘Instagram’ and ‘Tik Tok’.

Jonny Anderson, 19, also from University of Sheffield said: “I thought that was an absolutely great opportunity to join in and raise awareness for a really serious issue.

“Especially among young men, I think often men don’t talk about it so I think encouraging men to talk about their mental health and everyone in general is a really positive thing”.

The challenge works by someone being nominated and they are given 24 hours to complete it by having a bucket of ice poured over them. 

After completing the challenge you are allowed to nominate two to five people to pass the challenge on.

Fellow student Dan Richardson,19, said: “It was all over my instagram, loads people dunking themselves and I didn’t know why”

He was then nominated for the challenge, which led him to do research into what it was about. He spoke about how it was good to raise awareness especially for men’s mental health.

 He said: “It was for a really good reason, men should be speaking about mental health. What they think really matters”. 

Alison Malmon, the Founder and Executive Director of Active Minds, said: “To see youth and young adults take an iconic viral moment and breathe new life into it for mental health advocacy is incredibly powerful. It’s proof that when young people rally together with passion and purpose, they don’t just raise awareness—they ignite a movement”.