Final Blog Post!!! Yay!

My overall experience with the project was good. I feel good about the amount of work and background information I'm providing and I have a pretty solid presentation ready for tomorrow. 

Whether or not my project gets picked as the official Bridge Idaho project for my school, I am very excited to continue and complete my project. I think my community needs to be able to look past outer beauty or even society's beauty standards and I think my project will help in that effort. 

What I learned was that creating a project plan takes a lot of time. I will also need to recruit others to help implement this project so I can do this on a larger scale. 

I wish I had more time, if I did, then I would be able to make an even better plan. 

Let me Convince you:

"I want to convince you to choose my project. Young people in my community often have self-esteem issues. 

Here is some evidence that something needs to change: 

Among high school students, 44% of girls and 15% of guys are attempting to lose weight. 

75% of girls with low self-esteem reported engaging in negative activities like cutting, bullying, smoking, drinking, or disordered eating. This compares to 25% of girls with high self-esteem.

Knowing this information really tugs at the heartstrings. These girls and boys could be your sister, your brother, a cousin, or even a friend. You could even fit into this statistic. 

Lets not have the people we love or even ourselves be that statistic. 

So what can we do to change this?

The #I am Beautiful campaign will help the community by striving to redefine what beauty is and to motivate people to find beauty within themselves and others. 

So please help me to help others by voting my project #I am Beautiful as the official Bridge Idaho campaign. 

Thank you"

Reflection: This quote sums up service well. In my experience, any service I have done, I learn so much about myself. I learn other transferable skills as well. I've learned leadership, organization and public speaking skills. I truly feel that doing service for others helps to better yourself.

Presentation Progress:

My presentation is coming along ok. I have all the slides organized the way I want them, but I am not sure how I will persuade the judges to vote for my project. My sales skills are not the best. My plan is to do some research on some sales strategies so I can increase my changes of being chosen.

Reflection: I think this means that we all have a certain amount of power. However if we think we don't have any power, we end up giving it to somebody else. This could be a family member, a significant other, a friend, a stranger, or anybody. 

Reflection: 

I really like what this quote is saying. I think that sometimes we get caught up in our problems and don't stop to think about what we can do to fix those problems. Or even the fact that if we change our attitude about the problem, then some of that stress and frustration will be alleviated. 

The Presentation!!!!

Ok first and foremost, I do not like giving presentations, I get nervous and I stumble on my words. But I really think that by showing my enthusiasm for my project and describing in detail what the project will look like, I can ensure that it will be chosen as the official Bridge Idaho project in my school :)

I'm not sure what the other projects are, but what will really set mine apart is all the hard work and effort I have put into creating the project. I think by focusing on the details and being excited will get my fellow students excited about my project!

Reflection

I think this quote means that we need to take advantage of the gifts we have and not take them for granted. 

#I am Beautiful

Project: #I am Beautiful

To start, I had difficulty in choosing what project to create. I found many projects I could do about self-image with the Bridge Idaho students while they are on the Moscow campus. I thought about creating a campaign to encourage students to go make-up free for a day or even creating a 'real teen' magazine to promote healthy sell-image for young males and females. I was exploring Pinterest when I found a project that I thought would be perfect in the short time period we have at UofI. Originally the project was #I am Smart because... but I have changed it to a self-image campaign; #I am Beautiful because...

Basically, I will create a backdrop with the words "I am Beautiful because..." Students will be able to write reasons why they are beautiful on a piece of paper to hold up and take pictures in front of the backdrop. They can then post to social media using the #I am Beautiful hashtag.

My hope is that the Bridge Idaho students will gain confidence in what makes themselves and each other beautiful.

Reflection:

I have a feeling that people will interpret this quote in many different ways. I see this quote as meaning whatever you think your abilities are and the effort you put into attaining those abilities, you will become what you think. This quote also describes confidence. For instance, if I think I am awesome, so I shall become awesome :) 

Self-Image

After reflecting on each of my areas of interest I've decided to focus my research on self-image. 

I chose this topic because I remember what it is like to be a young female trying to navigate a world that told me I should look, think, feel, and act in certain ways. I want to create a project that will help young people feel comfortable in their skin. 

Some interesting statistics I found are listed below and found on dosomething.org

• Body image is closely linked to self-esteem. Low self-esteem in adolescents can lead to eating disorders, early sexual activity, substance use and suicidal thoughts.

• 58% of college-aged girls feel pressured to be a certain weight.

• Studies show that the more reality television a young girl watches, the more likely she is to find appearance important.

• In a survey, more than 40% of women and about 20% of men agreed they would consider cosmetic surgery in the future. The statistics remain relatively constant across gender, age, marital status, and race.

• 95% of people with eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 25.

My next step is to research different project ideas based on improving people's self-image.


Reflection: 

I am no doubt a big Harry Potter fan. This quote resonates with me in a big way. It is saying that despite our abilities or inabilities our true selves are shown in our choices. Not only are we able to see our true selves, others are able to see the real us by the choices we make. For instance I may be decent at writing, but does that ability show who I really am? No it is how I chose to use my abilities that show the true me...any other thoughts on this?

Research interests

Welcome to my Blog!

As I'm starting my service-learning project I am looking into a few different areas: 

• Education Inequality: I have a strong passion for this topic, as I come from a low-income and first generation college student background. I have personally struggled with the barriers that education inequality creates. 
• Self-Image: Young people today have a unique problem. Social media and our constant online connection can make us easy targets for internet trolls. I think this would be a good topic to explore in hopes teaching people how to cope with negativity 
• Food Scarcity: Food scarcity is a real thing. It's not just on TV and in the movies. Going even further, many people do not have quality food or enough of it. Come on people, Top Ramen is gross and has little nutritional value. 

Reflection: 

This is an interesting quote. I think it means that in order to understand ourselves and our place in this world, we must reflect. Reflect on what we do right and what we could do better. We should reflect on relationships and how we interact with people. If we do not reflect we are not truly experiencing our best selves, and only exist for other people to experience or use us.