Healthy Kids Day @ the Wang YMCA

This past Saturday a fantastic event, Healthy Kids Day, was held at the Wang YMCA. Healthy Kids Day is an annual event held by YMCAs around the country aimed to increase kids’ awareness of how to live a healthy life and what it means to be healthy. I spent a lot of time helping to plan the Wang’s Healthy Kids Day, and am happy to report that the event was great and drew a full house. I think that Saturday’s event was a showcase for a successful event that includes many sectors of the community. Although the event was aimed at kids, there were people of all ages and backgrounds in attendance. Many community groups and businesses volunteered their time to participate, from the police to health professionals to a traditional Chinese dance group. Best of all….everyone had FUN!

Below are some highlights from the day!

Healthy snacks were donated and served to get kids thinking about eating right and cutting out junk foods. Wholefoods market sent three very creative employees who got kids eating veggies by challenging them to create a “veggie face” on a plate and then eat all the veggies to win a prize.

The Beantown Jumpers showed the crowed a doublt dutch routine.

Northeastern’s ballroom dance team performed an awesome dance (and then was asked to come back out for an encore!). NUBallroom is a great group that is hoping to continue to work with the Wang to teach dance classes to kids in the after school and summer program in the coming months!

Girls perform traditional Chinese Dance!

A volunteer led kids in fitness activities!

"SlutWalk" Facilitation Workshop

On Saturday, I facilitated a sexual assault awareness workshop with participants of the "SlutWalk" rally. "SlutWalk" is a recent movement protesting sexual assault, aimed particularly at changing the victim-blaming culture that surrounds sexual assault. The initial "SlutWalk" rally took place in Toronto, after a local police officer stated that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized." The rally drew a crowd of over 3,000 protesters, inspiring others to organize "SlutWalk" events in other cities.

The workshop that I facilitated took place after the march itself, and was part of a series of other workshops and presentations. The primary activity that I did with the participants was engage them in the activity of "Agree, Disagree, Unsure" which involved me reading a statement, and then asking people whether they agree, disagree, or are unsure of the statements validity, and to explain why they feel the way that they do. The participants were extremely passionate about the statements that I read, and were very eager to share their views. Since the participants were all activists, dissenting opinions were rare, yet that did not prevent the group from having thoughtful discussions. All in all it was a tremendous experience, as it feels great to raise awareness regarding the important issue of sexual assault.