GirlsBuild Challenge Submission Video
Mission Statement
In a response to the Coronavirus Pandemic and in order to promote positive mental health practices and demonstrate wellness tips for students and families, we hosted a virtual wellness week with webinars and provided personalized wellness kits for our webinar participants.
Project Need Survey
The State of Young People during the COVID-19 Pandemic
In addition to learning about the health and wellness needs in our community, we wanted to know and
understand the experiences of young people and students at our school during the Coronavirus pandemic.
America's Promise Alliance conducted a survey in April-May 2020 to measure the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on youth across the nation.
Click here to see the results of their survey
After analyzing the results of this study, we discussed our personal connections and became
curious to find out the impact of the pandemic on youth in our own school community.
We conducted our survey in April 2021. After a year of online learning, our findings revealed that young people in our community are continuing to struggle.
Click here to see the results of our survey
understand the experiences of young people and students at our school during the Coronavirus pandemic.
America's Promise Alliance conducted a survey in April-May 2020 to measure the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on youth across the nation.
Click here to see the results of their survey
After analyzing the results of this study, we discussed our personal connections and became
curious to find out the impact of the pandemic on youth in our own school community.
We conducted our survey in April 2021. After a year of online learning, our findings revealed that young people in our community are continuing to struggle.
Click here to see the results of our survey
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Process
Throughout the school year, our club attended virtual meetings on zoom. Our club met at least twice each month after school on Tuesdays.
During our club meetings, we brainstormed and planned our wellness week webinar and presentations.
We also engaged in discussion topics, such as Racism, Patriarchy and Privilege, Coping WithElection Anxiety, Women in the Media,
and Gender Based Violence. See our club meeting slides below for more information!
During our club meetings, we brainstormed and planned our wellness week webinar and presentations.
We also engaged in discussion topics, such as Racism, Patriarchy and Privilege, Coping WithElection Anxiety, Women in the Media,
and Gender Based Violence. See our club meeting slides below for more information!
Project Planner |
Final Budget |
Civic Engagement
We expanded our project beyond the walls of our school and connected to our national and world community through advocacy at the United Nations 65th Commission on the Status of Women. Two of our club representatives attended and participated in CSW parallel events as youth delegates with Girls Learn International. They collaborated with women and girls from across the United States and countries around the world to discuss issues such as the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on women and girls around the world, politics, power and activism as well as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Read their experience summaries on our Blog page!
Project Outcomes
Some short term outcomes of our project are that we hosted 2 webinars with a total of 81 attendees and distributed 36 personalized wellness kits (so far). Each wellness kit includes selected items to implement the wellness strategies they choose to implement into their weekly routine, such as journaling, painting, skin care, aromatherapy, etc. In the long term, we hope that they continue to practice these strategies and share their knowledge with friends and family members. By practicing and promoting self-care, we hope to see a decrease in chronic stress, depression, lack of motivation, etc. among youth in our community. As a result of our wellness webinars, participants responded that they are somewhat likely (2), likely (12) or very likely (32) to begin practicing at least one of the wellness strategies demonstrated during our presentations into their weekly routine. Also, 36 participants ordered a personalized wellness kit to begin implementing their wellness plan. We plan to continue distributing wellness kits to students and community members once we are able to implement our pop up events. Participants provided positive feedback, indicating that the events were fun and informative. Read some participant testimonials on our Impact page!
Evidence
Here is some evidence of our project outcomes from our participant exit survey. For more evidence, visit our Impact page!
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Reflection
Reflecting on our project, we feel proud to have accomplished our wellness week event! Through our research, we learned a lot about our community as well as their experiences throughout the Coronavirus pandemic. We also came out of our comfort zone to record ourselves and present during a live webinar. Our school support staff also began sharing our videos for Wellness Wednesday every week on the school-wide Instagram and Schoology group for all students and family members to view!
We were hoping that our school would be open sooner to have the opportunity to host our wellness week as in-person "make-and-take" workshops. However, our school remained closed until late April. Despite this challenge, we successfully implemented our event virtually. We think that if we were able to implement an in-person event, it would have been more interactive with more participants in attendance. An in-person event would also have provided opportunities to take more video and photos. Another challenge we encountered is that our school scheduled another event for the same day as our first webinar. As a result, we had less attendees because they were participating in a virtual college presentation. Although we met our goal of having at least 25 participants at each of our webinars, some participants didn't order the amount of items we expected them to order. We have some remaining inventory to implement additional workshops either during the summer or at the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year.
Having our club meetings virtually on zoom presented additional challenges as well. We started the school year with ambitious brainstorming to include a third webinar, however some club members stopped attending meetings and our remaining club members began feeling overwhelmed with academic and family responsibilities. Therefore, we decided to reduce the number of wellness strategies we presented and hosted two webinars. Each club member was responsible for presenting a wellness strategy of their choice. This plan worked out well because we distributed the work evenly and worked as a team. With the funds that we had budgeted for our third webinar, we voted to add more prizes for our prize drawing. We also hoped to have a pop-up health and wellness tent in the school quad or on the sidewalk outside the gates of our school to provide information, demonstrate wellness strategies and distribute wellness kits. With the continued school closure lasting almost the entire 2020-2021 school year, we have postponed this part of our project, but we are excited to implement this in the future.
We were hoping that our school would be open sooner to have the opportunity to host our wellness week as in-person "make-and-take" workshops. However, our school remained closed until late April. Despite this challenge, we successfully implemented our event virtually. We think that if we were able to implement an in-person event, it would have been more interactive with more participants in attendance. An in-person event would also have provided opportunities to take more video and photos. Another challenge we encountered is that our school scheduled another event for the same day as our first webinar. As a result, we had less attendees because they were participating in a virtual college presentation. Although we met our goal of having at least 25 participants at each of our webinars, some participants didn't order the amount of items we expected them to order. We have some remaining inventory to implement additional workshops either during the summer or at the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year.
Having our club meetings virtually on zoom presented additional challenges as well. We started the school year with ambitious brainstorming to include a third webinar, however some club members stopped attending meetings and our remaining club members began feeling overwhelmed with academic and family responsibilities. Therefore, we decided to reduce the number of wellness strategies we presented and hosted two webinars. Each club member was responsible for presenting a wellness strategy of their choice. This plan worked out well because we distributed the work evenly and worked as a team. With the funds that we had budgeted for our third webinar, we voted to add more prizes for our prize drawing. We also hoped to have a pop-up health and wellness tent in the school quad or on the sidewalk outside the gates of our school to provide information, demonstrate wellness strategies and distribute wellness kits. With the continued school closure lasting almost the entire 2020-2021 school year, we have postponed this part of our project, but we are excited to implement this in the future.
