Cronulla Sharks Andrew Fifita co-founds mental health app Croo
Local Sport
MAKING A DIFFEREN
CE: Andrew Fifita with Tim Rice during a visit to Griffith in 2016. Fifita has now co-founded an app to support mental health.
Cronulla Sharks forward and Waratahs junior Andrew Fifita has co-founded an app which he hopes can help break the stigma around mental health.
For the NRL veteran, it is an issue close to his heart with regional areas, such as Griffith in western NSW, battling with a mental health crisis, and that was the driving factor behind the app's creation.
"I did an event at home last year with the suicide rates being so high, and it just made me think that I need to get onto something," he said.
"It is something that I have had to be through myself, and at least now I can say that I have tried, and we have done something with this app that could change someone's life or potentially even save a life."
The app called Croo allows you to create a group with trusted friends and family, and it allows you to track your mood and will alert the trusted group when your mood may be on a downward trend.
"I think that this is bigger than the pandemic at the moment when talking about suicide, and mental health is massive for all of us," he said.
"We have created this app on the basis of that. It's about keeping your family and friends in the know about what you are going through. It just takes a click of a button."
The app was created in a partnership with Jardian Ormsby after having a discussion about wanting to make a difference which was a shared interest of the pair, and now Fifita can't wait to hear about the impact of Croo.
"He "(Ormsby) opened his laptop, and the app was right there," he said
"He was in the same place as me and just wanted to change the stigma around mental health, and we decided that this was the best way forward.
"I can't wait to hear how this has helped people, and we have already had some really positive feedback about what we are trying to do with the app."
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