Mental Health

Our Program

Mental health is an incredibly important, and often neglected, part of living a healthy life. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and lockdown was enforced, we realized that our scholarship students had an overwhelming need for mental health support.

Pre-COVID, we were only offering tutoring services, but once the pandemic hit, our eyes were opened to how much our scholarship students were struggling. Our students primarily struggle with oppressive poverty and rampant domestic violence, which created feelings of imposter syndrome and self-esteem. Essentially, even though we were providing our scholarship students with the opportunity for higher education and assisting in creating a cleaner environment, our students struggle with the belief that they did not and do not have what it takes to graduate.

While other organizations focus on domestic violence and poverty, we choose a more encompassing approach for our scholarship students by providing mental health services for whatever issues are happening. We believe that the best way for us to help our scholarship students is to help them help themselves. Through the services we provide, our students learn more about themselves, more about the world around them, and learn tools for how to process and manage these feelings.

In 2021, we officially got our mental health services up and running. When we began, we were only offering 1-on-1 counseling for our university students and group workshops for the entire community. We offered 1-on-1 sessions biweekly, and the group workshops meet bimonthly. The group sessions are more generalized and focused on different aspects of life. For example, some of our monthly workshops have included themes such as: empathy, goal setting, violence against women, sexuality and gender, and effective communication.

In 2022, we branched out to provide counseling for all of our scholarship students. However, since then our scholarship students have voiced that not all of them need these services so frequently. As of 2024, we continue to provide mental health services 1-on-1 and group sessions for any who wish to utilize them. We are incredibly proud of this initiative and proud to demonstrate how much we care about our students not just as students but also as fully rounded individuals.