Children’s mental health champion: Chatham woman awarded $40K scholarship

Zara Belanger-Pepper is not even a full year into adulthood, but she has long been a champion for children’s mental health.

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This has been a major factor in the 18-year-old Chatham woman being awarded a $40,000 Laurier Scholars Award as she nearly completed her first year studying psychology and neuroscience at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo.

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The École supérieure de Pain Court graduate is one of only seven first-year Laurier students to earn the prestigious entrance scholarship from among 380 applicants. Her strong advocacy for children’s mental health helped her earn the scholarship.

At age 11, she wrote a children’s book, titled What I Have Learned (About Life After Suicide) after she lost her father, which led to public speaking events.

“Ever since then, I’ve been advocating for children’s mental health,” she said.

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Writing the book with her grandmother Jane Parry was her way of healing.

“I wrote it for myself to start, but then we noticed it would help other people,” Belanger-Pepper said.

Her interest in the brain and studying neuroscience is in her genes.

Belanger-Pepper said her mom, Dr. Andrea Pepper, gave birth to her while in the midst of studying for her PhD in neurophysiology.

“I’ve always been super-interested in the brain and its inner workings, so studying this now is pretty awesome,” she of her first year at Laurier.

Belanger-Pepper said she and her mom have matching neuron tattoos on their feet, “because we love neuroscience so much.”

She is currently interested in sensory neuroscience, studying how the senses work together and how people perceive things.

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She is also interested in the heredity of mental health regarding “how the brain can develop mental health issues.”

Nothing there is a lot of research gaps in this area, Belanger-Pepper said, “I find that all really interesting. It’s something that I want to find out in life.”

Part of her scholarship includes $10,000 for experiential learning and she is already beginning to map out what this will be after recently becoming a volunteer in the lab of her scholar’s mentor, assistant professor, Dr. Nichole Scheerer.

Belanger-Pepper said the plan for the experiential learning includes a directed study project with Sheerer involving her going to Simon Fraser University in British Columbia to conduct sensory science research. The research would involve auditory feedback in children with special needs, such as autism, she added.

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Belanger-Pepper applied for the scholarship award and felt the interview went well. She was on the bus when she learned she won the scholarship.

“I screamed I was so excited about it.”

Belanger-Pepper is also pretty pumped about her future, which she hopes includes fulfilling her dream from the time she was in Grade 7 to be a doctor.

“I want to go to medical school someday, so I’m hoping that this gives me a little bit of a motivation to get there.”

This summer will Belanger-Pepper’s third year working as a camp counselor at the YMCA of Chatham-Kent, which has been another positive, influential experience.

“I’ve grown a passion for working with children,” she said. “I would do absolutely anything for my kids at the YMCA.”

Belanger-Pepper said her dream of being a doctor has included different specialties over the years, but these days she is interested in pediatric neurosurgery or pediatric psychiatry or possibly family medicine.

One thing she knows for certain is “it will be something that has to do with kids, because I love them so much.”

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