ZUMBA!

This was an activity we did with the girls on our 4th meeting; we talked about fitness and eating healthy. Our goal was to show the girls how fun it can be to exercise.

What do you want in a boyfriend/girlfriend?

In this meeting, Alejandra and I decided to talk about the topic: Relationships. We knew that this subject was going to be a difficult one to address, especially when it would come to have the girls try to share things with thhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife rest of the group. We decided to try to start it off by watching the video (above) and asking the girls what they thought a good relationship should be? or what it has to have to function?(friendship or love relationship) They came up with a pretty good list but the one in particular we decision to focus on was, trust.
Alejandra shared a personal experience with the group and that got some of our girls to open up a little, but it did bring up our next topic, jealousy. We told the girls that feeling jealousy is normal and that jealousy isn't the reason a relationship fails, but how one responds to feeling jealous can. One example was, some girls start blaming themselves for things that their partner/friend is doing; they self-destruct. They start searching for flaws in themselves that would justify their partners behaivor when in reality, being jealous isn't letting (us) girls think rationally. Jealousy can lead to many things but we can decide what to do with those feelings. The advice we gave our girls was that if and when they become jealous that is does NOT mean that they should become some type of Sherlock Homles and start spying and stalking their partner, because that may end a relationship, but instead to turn that feeling into something constructive. Take the opportunity to re-evaluate the relationship and/or have a conversation about things that have led you to feel jealous. The key is communication.
To wrap the meeting up, we asked them to think about what makes someone ideal for you to form a relationship and to think if trust and loyalty was a priority?

Ladies of Chinquapin Trailer

Alejandra and I plan on adding on to this trailer. We want to interview some of our members to in order for our future members to get a sense of the environment and issues we talk about. We thought about filming one of our meetings but later on we thought about how personal our discussions could get and also that the some girls may not agree.

3rd Meeting

The third meeting was on the 13th of February and we continued our talk about self-image, from last meeting, and we also started a new topic that revolves around what we believe in and how those beliefs shape who we are and affect our appearance and self esteem.
To wrap up our discussion of self image, we watched a Youtube video (Every Girl Is Beautiful / Self-Esteem PSA Video) and the point we wanted the girls to understand is that the group consists of young female adults but the girls in the video were too young. I wanted our group to see that there are little girls that are going through pressures that children shouldn't worry but unfortunately do. In or discussion, we talked about how we have younger siblings and how they look up to us. If we were to tell them, "Oh your beautiful just the way you are" while we go to the mirror and stare at our figure and say, "I'm so fat and ugly" we are really sending them the wrong message. The girls needed to understand that what they say and do affects the younger girls around them and that they should be role models of how to love oneself.

With the other video, (Every Teenager should see this)we did an activity. As we watched the video, I would pause it when anyone would want to discuss a particular advice. We found that we didn't all agree on the same thing but in the end we grew stronger as a group because we bonded.

Our Panel

Rosita Waden: She is the counselor at Chinquapin and we can refer to her if we have topics that might need more insight and she can provide that for us.

Allison Marek: She’s in Girls Inc. and she knows the work we’ve done so far and she kept in touch throughout the project. She will guide us throughout the project and give us feedback, and constructive criticism.

Susan Davis: Chinquapin faculty member, minored in Women’s Studies, and taught in two all-girls schools.

Kenny O’Donell: Personal mentor. He’s knowledgeable of the things we’ve gone throught o accomplish this project, and has been contacted for some of the meetingswe’ve had; to have a different view of things, not just a women’s perspective.

Bridget Anderson: Chinquapin Board member, and as a women of great experience she willgive us educational insight of improvement.

Moving Foward..../ First Meeting

I have joined with Alejandra Badillo and we started a Women's Group for our school, Chinquapin Prep. We have become the coordinators of this group but we do have help from our teacher, Susan Davis, and Allison Marek, a representative from Girls Inc., to help make this group a place where girls are comfortable and can express and ask questions freely.

Our first meeting: It took place in the lounge and we had 13 girls show up. In this meeting, we really didn't address anything in particular. Alejandra and I wanted to know what the girls wanted to get out of the group; what they wanted to address and discuss. We did an activity involving magazine cut-outs and posting them on a bulletin board. After cutting out pictures that portrayed issues that were of importance to the girls, we discussed them. Alejandra and I got a good sense on what our group wanted to address so we have sat down and coordinated a schedule based on the results of the activity.

The first meeting made us realize that it takes a lot of planning to make a meeting run smoothly. Also another thing that we were made aware of was time, it seemed to go by so fast when in reality we could have estimated the time everything would taken in order to make the meeting flow better, but overall it was a good meeting.

“She helped me find the help I needed to continue with my life.”

As I re-read my blog, I do find myself being a lot more knowledgeable about counseling in general but I can’t say I have advance much on the project. My November blog was quite sad; I wrote about how I was lacking something and that I thought it was motivation. I know the reason why I started this project and I thought that did the motive for me want to help other students at Chinquapin but I felt stuck. Now that December is here, I found my motivation again. I want to give back to my community, Chinquapin, by helping and building awareness about seeking help through counseling.

I know that in August I may have seem more enthusiastic about the project and that that enthusiasm has died down. But now, I have seen my progress and that has given me a little confidence boost and that has given me some motivation to continue fighting for a full-time counselor.