Introducing the first-ever Rare Impact Ambassador program

The Social Talks spoke to Cyn Gomez about his experience as one of the faces of Rare Beauty’s first Ambassador program

28 college and graduate students across the United States have been chosen for the first-ever Rare Impact Ambassador Program launched by the brand Rare Beauty. They will work closely with the Rare Impact team and mental health community partners to campaign for mental health advocacy. 

Rare Beauty was founded in September 2020 by singer, producer, businesswoman, activist,   and actress Selena Gomez. The brand has stood out for its vegan and cruelty-free makeup formula but also for how the brand celebrates individuality and promotes self-love.

The brand claims its mission is to break down the unrealistic standards of beauty that society enforces. And instead generate new conversations around beauty, mental health, and self-acceptance. The Rare Impact Fund was launched in 2020 to reduce the stigma associated with mental health. With a focus on expanding access to mental health services, in educational environments and among communities.

For Mental Health Awareness month Selena Gomez launched Your Words Matter, which is an educational campaign that empowers the impact that words can have. Especially when talking about mental health and how to react. 

Rare Impact Ambassadors recently began their program and its focal point is community, growth, and advocacy. The ambassadors will amplify the company's mission as well as learn how to be mental health advocates for themselves and those around them.

Speaking with a chosen ambassador:

Cyn Gomez who is a trans non-binary was recently selected as an ambassador for this project. They shared with us how they came to be one of the selected ambassadors, “I learnt about the Rare Beauty ambassadorship opportunity from Mental Health America. Specifically, the young adult leadership cohort director, Kelly Davis,  who forwarded it to a couple of folks myself included.” They started and went on to explain how he felt it was a good opportunity to re-engage with gender expression in a new way.

During the conversation with Gomez, they deep-dived into the journey with mental health, “My journey goes back to High School right when I started to get involved with my NAMI organization on campus, over the years I started getting more involved in learning how to tell my story and give historical and cultural context to why I was feeling the way I was. As well as why I was going through what I was,” (NAMI is the national alliance for mental health).

“By the time I got to my senior year of high school, I was vice president of my NAMI as well as attending conferences on mental health where I met Torri Shack who is the founder of a mental health nonprofit called a Tangible Movement. I started getting involved with them and now I'm the diversity equity and inclusion director for this profit,” Gomez tells us.

After his senior year, Gomez joined the Mental Health America Youth Leadership Council where they met others passionate about performing mental health services. “Here is where I learned more about how I can diversify my work beyond just talking about my own experiences, which is equally valid, but I wanted to start feeling like I was doing something about it,” they explained, “this allowed me to learn about how to legislate advocating for mental health.”

“I started learning about different spaces to tap into and different organizations to reach out to, not to mention I also started learning about ways I can get involved on my respective campus through commission and started embedding mental health practices into other relevant intersections such as gender, queerness cultural and ethnic backgrounds.”

Gomez opened up about them own experience and the impact it can have on the trans community, “Participating in this specific program means a lot to me as a trans person. I feel it's tough for me to engage with beauty or makeup in a way that is true to my identity but also uplifting and empowering all trans people, All men should be able to engage in this space and feel like they have an equal stake.” The program offers an opportunity to widen the conversation within the mental health community.  

“I'm proud to be a part of this project and especially in the inaugural cohort, it's going to be a lot of growth and learning opportunities that I'm excited to contribute to. They are empowering us to have the tools to do something about the issues that we are seeing or the struggles that we are facing, I'm looking forward to the compounding programs that we also get to be a part of as a rare beauty ambassador”.

They shared what it means to truly be an ambassador and how inspiring it is “I love the premise of why we are doing this and what the goal is to the rare beauty rare impact ambassadorship,  the main component of it is a community, as well as advocacy so not only, are we meant to be sharing our experiences and where we have grown and how we've mobilised but also being a community with one another and see each other as true full humans beyond our mental health advocacy”.

Mr Gomez tells an inspiring story, and Rare Beauty's commitment to making a difference in the world is evident. In the words of Cyn Gomez,  “I'm looking forward to pushing their message to destigmatizing conversations around mental health. 

Rare Beauty and its ambassadors such as Gomez feel that talking about mental health should be as easy as navigating a conversation while you're doing your makeup.

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