Warning: This article contains references to mental health and suicide.
“Stay out of trouble. Pay taxes. Have babies. Make a living. Buy a boat. Hit age 59-and-a-half. Collect retirement. Die.”
For most readers, these words may have just raised an eyebrow – but for 70-year-old Order of Australia (OAM) recipient, Ian Westmoreland – it changed his life.
“It’s called, Sun Stands Still,” he says while grabbing Steven Furtick’s Christian self-help book (a gift from his youngest daughter) from under the coffee table between us. He re-reads the passage to me.
“Stay out of trouble: sort of tick. Pay taxes: tick. Have babies: tick. Make a living: tick. Buy a boat, I even had a boat!” he says.
“The date is really important, 10th of September 2013. I later found out that’s World Suicide Prevention [Day]. I was 59-and-a-half to the day.
“I’ve always said there’s more to life than making money and delivering software changes. What I read that day questioned the role of what Christians should be.”
In 2014, Westmoreland quit his work in IT to volunteer with the RAISE foundation, mentoring high school students.
However, after hearing the story of a young man whose father had suicided pleading, “Ian help me!” – he found himself in tears and realised he also needed a ‘life’ mentor to feel supported.
As a result, Mentoring Men was born in 2018 – addressing loneliness, anxiety and depression. It’s an increasingly important issue, as men make up approximately 75 per cent of all suicide deaths in Australia.
Within weeks Mentoring Men had secured a $150,000 government grant, partnered with Lifeline, featured on SBS and even ran Arabic courses for Iraqi refugees.
Kintsugi refers to [the] Japanese art form where you take broken pottery and put it back together using precious metal. When you look at it, it’s far more beautiful and valuable. It’s a metaphor for lived experience.
“It gave them [men] a vehicle to achieve their dreams,” he says.
“Whatever Ian does you know he’s going to be committed to it and you know it’s going to happen,” she says, and laughs: “He’s got this phrase, ‘ready, fire, aim’.”
Westmoreland quips: “For most people, it’s ‘ready, aim, fire’.”
However, as the organisation started booming, Westmoreland began to burn-out and took a step back from his not-for-profit.
But not for long. Following a correspondence with Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith, Westmoreland set up the mental health charity Kintsugi Heroes in 2022.
“Kintsugi refers to [the] Japanese art form where you take broken pottery and put it back together using precious metal,” Westmoreland says. “When you look at it it’s far more beautiful and valuable. It’s a metaphor for lived experience.”
I find myself automatically sharing my lived experience with poor mental health during high school.
“Wow,” he says. “It’s Kintsugi. You’re using that awful lived experience that could help the next Mahir who is suffering through the same thing.”
The organisation through podcast and video interviews shares the stories of resilience of everyday Australians, to demystify suffering.
John Millham, 60, who first met Westmoreland outside Joe’s Pizza in Narrabeen, and is now on the organisation’s advisory board says: “Mentoring is not a hierarchical relationship. Life mentoring is peer to peer.”
Ian with his OAM. Photo: Mahir Munot.
“[Ian’s] a special, special man… I call him ‘skipper’.
“He’s committed and that can be infuriating at times, he’s personal,” he laughs.
In September Westmoreland was at Government House to receive an Order of Australia Medal for his work, an honour that he says came as a huge surprise.
“I didn’t even know. Two people independently had nominated me,” he says. “I was actually on a cruise in the middle of the Pacific with my wife, but I was on a Zoom call and this email came in and it said, ‘OAM or something’…I said to someone, ‘look I’ve been spammed’. Then someone went away and Googled what it was and it wasn’t spam it was legit.”
Westmoreland recently invited 60 guests for a men’s breakfast in his northern suburbs home in Asquith.
“I had an international busker… he came here with his guitar and all 60 men sang this African tribal song in the native tongue… and the sound was just amazing,” he says.
As the clock hits 5.30pm it’s church-time for Westmoreland, and he leaves me with one last thought.
“There is definitely a need for this, the power of storytelling,” he says.
“I want to help build a world with more connection, more meaningful connection. Intentional personal connection.”
Help is always available.
If you need to talk, 24/7 crisis support is available from Lifeline by calling 13 11 14.
Main image of Ian Westmoreland by Mahir Munot.
