A "Baton of Hope" has been taken around Belfast as part of a UK-wide tour aimed at igniting a conversation around mental health service provision and suicide provision.
The charity of the same name was started by former BBC and Sky journalist Mike McCarthy, after his son Ross took his own life in 2021.
The baton was carried by various bearers across all parts of Belfast on Friday, stopping in at various mental health charities along the way.
Read more: Suicide survivor to carry Baton of Hope in bid to inspire others to ask for help
Parliament Buildings was also one of those ports of call, where MLAs, baton-bearers and charity supporters all walked with the baton down the famous Stormont mile.
Mike McCarthy was emotional as he told Belfast Live about the special personal meaning and mission of the baton.
"I went to bed on 20 February 2021 and it was just another night," he said.
"I had no idea that my life was just going to take a completely different turn and that it would be changed forever, but we got a phone call in the night to say that my beloved son Ross, who was 31, had taken his own life.
"One of the things that he had said was 'please fight for mental health, the support is just not there.'
"What he meant by that is that he had struggled with severe depression for more than 10 years and went to ask for therapy and was put on a six month waiting list.
"He died two weeks into the wait."
Mike said he had covered warzones in Iraq and Afghanistan as a journalist, but that the scale of the mental health and suicide crisis in the UK blew him away.
He said the idea behind the baton was to create a symbol that sparked conversations and, crucially, hope.
"Once I started to get back on my feet, as a journalist, I did all the research that I could and discovered to my shock and also to my shame to a degree, that suicide was the biggest killer of under-35s in the United Kingdom," he said.
"The one thing that unties everybody that takes their life is a complete loss of hope.
"We wanted to create something that might just reach out to somebody, a tangible symbol that people could see, that they could hold and maybe believe in.
"A company called Thomas Lyte, who are goldsmiths and silversmiths to the Royal Family no less, heard about us and asked us did we want them to design and create it.
"We tried to play it cool, but basically snapped their hand off and the baton was born."
A striking and beautiful object, the baton is woven with gold and silver and certainly caught the eye of those present at Stormont on Friday.
Among them was Northern Ireland's Mental Health Champion, Professor Siobhan O'Neill, who welcomed its presence and called for more to be done to help those struggling.
"We have a really strong plan, the Mental Health Strategy, to reform mental health services and we're working our way through that," she said.
"We do need more money allocated to mental health and we need more training places commissioned, we need more staff for our mental health services, so that's really, really important.
"But we also have the suicide prevention strategy and do you know, suicide prevention is not just about mental health and mental illness.
"It's about people who are struggling, who are in a state of crisis, who are in despair, so things like poverty impact on suicide rates and social inequality is relevant there too.
"So it's about all those things as well as keeping going with the reform of mental health services."
Another person endorsing the work of the Baton of Hope charity was Nadia Sayers.
The Youth Development Manager at Hope 4 NI, Nadia said she had experienced her own mental health struggles in her early 20s and said the role the charity and third sector played in helping people was "invaluable."
She encouraged those struggling to reach out and ask for help.
"I think the most important thing to recognise is that you don't need to have all of the words, you don't need to know exactly what to say," she said.
"If you're worried about a friend, ask them how they are and ask them again.
"If you're struggling, your friend will be patient, ask for help.
"They can bring you and act as a bridge to those professionals that can give you the support that you need.
"The earlier that we can recognise that we need a bit of backup, the earlier we can get to feeling more like ourselves again.
"There are so many people out there that are there to help, it's just finding them and it's not always easy, but speaking up is the first step."
The baton started its tour of the UK in Glasgow on 25 June and will finish its course at 10 Downing Street on Thursday 6 July.
You can find out more information about the tour on the charity's website.
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