TNHG: 2025: Silver Award Team 2 - Art On Your Mind
Amanda, Angela and Tam:
The issue the project addressed is the impact of stress and anxiety among youths, specifically children between the age of 10 to 16. In school, we’ve observed that our peers struggle to cope with stress and anxiety because of pressure from academics, social media, personal relationships, etc. Compounding the issue, students are uncomfortable expressing their thoughts and feelings and reaching out for help from adults. This causes them to keep their emotions bottled up without an outlet to relieve their stress. Ultimately, their pent-up anxiety results in a negative impact on their outlook and confidence level.
Our target audience was our peer group, boys and girls in our North San Jose community, who are between 10 to 16 years of age. We felt more comfortable working with this age group as we can relate better to them. We also are part of a Scout community that has more than a hundred scouts, including ones in this age group. We also were able to reach out to youths through the library as well.
Stress and anxiety have complex root causes, consisting of a multitude of factors. They can come from school, family, social media and more. When you think deeply about the root cause, youths face the pressure of school work, being told to receive at least ten awards by their senior year, or from social media posts of the glorious beautiful strangers making one wish to be them. There are so many ways of becoming stressed or anxious, but because of stigmas and lack of awareness, there are very few tools and education to help youths learn to cope and relieve stress.
Our team created a workshop that helped our peers express feelings through art as a method to cope and relieve stress. The art booth allowed youths to express their complex emotions through art. Besides painting on a canvas, there were other media such as origami and crochet with simple instructions so that anyone could participate. Our workshop mainly focused on art, and expressing our feelings and actions does not have to always be talking to the adults we trust.
In addition to art, we had different spaces such as a meditation and quiet space for youths to relax. There was no pressure to do anything as we were helping youths with stress and anxiety, not trying to intensify it. In both workshops, people were free to come and leave whenever they wanted. We received advice from Dr. Chatav, a clinical psychologist specialized in children, to guide us on these activities. At the information table, we designed an interactive handout comic book so the youths can take home, along with educational brochures on behavioral health and mental well being. Making this session helped the youths rest and build ideas to manage stress and anxiety.
The team hosted two workshops; one at Sunday Friends, a non-profit community organization focusing on children and family, and the other at the San Jose Berryessa Branch Library. Tia Tranhoang is the Operation Manager we worked with for the Sunday Friends workshop, and Shih Kao is the librarian we worked with for the library workshop. We advertised our workshops by sending flyers to our troop, the library, schools, and people we know.
In addition to art, we had different spaces such as a meditation and quiet space for youths to relax. There was no pressure to do anything as we were helping youths with stress and anxiety, not trying to intensify it. In both workshops, people were free to come and leave whenever they wanted. We received advice from Dr. Chatav, a clinical psychologist specialized in children, to guide us on these activities. At the information table, we designed an interactive handout comic book so the youths can take home, along with educational brochures on behavioral health and mental well being. Making this session helped the youths rest and build ideas to manage stress and anxiety.
The team hosted two workshops; one at Sunday Friends, a non-profit community organization focusing on children and family, and the other at the San Jose Berryessa Branch Library. Tia Tranhoang is the Operation Manager we worked with for the Sunday Friends workshop, and Shih Kao is the librarian we worked with for the library workshop. We advertised our workshops by sending flyers to our troop, the library, schools, and people we know.
I discovered that I enjoy working with kids and meeting new people in my community. While hosting our program at the Berryessa Branch Library, specifically working at the playdough station, I learned that helping/teaching children is a very rewarding task. Moreover, I discovered that although I’m young, I can still make a big and positive impact on my community but the world as well. While giving our presentations to both our Sunday Friends and library audience, I realized that my team and I were actually capable of capturing a large group’s attention to speak about a topic we believe is important. - Amanda
I realized that I’m not just a highschooler, but I’m someone who believes in change. Doing the presentation on mental health to other people made me realize that I had many potentials. I had a strong voice, and I did reach my point to others, I connected with others during that presentation. I discovered that I could do anything if I just started with a plan. Something doesn’t appear if I just wish, I have to start by doing something. After this whole project, I realized that. - Angela
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