Speak Out: Becoming Social Advocates at HTHCV

Our group, since the beginning, tried their best to tie all of our topics together. When we were grouped, we realized our topics didn’t go with each other, and they were polar opposites. Throughout the project, we worked and tried different methods in order to connect our topics together in the best way to make it flow. We realized that through the method of “Speaking Up/Out”, our topics came together. Bullying, Feminism, Beauty Standards and Equality in Education have that connection, that most people are afraid of speaking out about these topics, so we tried to create this zine in order to help others feel comfortable about speaking up. Our message was to create a safe space where people would feel comfortable talking about these topics without feeling judged or shamed.

For me, I chose Bullying because it’s a topic that is important to me and something that I don’t talk about much. I used to be bullied when I was younger, and becoming an advocate for those without a voice and those that are targets, was so important to me. Through this zine, I was given the chance to explore this topic and share with others why it’s so important to speak out about Bullying and care for those who are targets.

My Zine Pages: Bullying

Creating a zine isn't all about making a collage out of pictures or including eye-catching quotes, it's about sharing and expressing self-creativity and showing others exactly what you are passionate about. Zines are mini magazines, ones which showcase any topic/opinion in a creative way. We created a zine which showcased 4 different topics, and in these topics, we then created essay's in which we featured facts, statistics and viewpoints about our topic. Mine talked about bullying and how important it is to create a safer environment for targets of bullying. Click below to read more about my process and my essay!

My Perspective and Actions

Literature research was tough, and something that I didn’t know about before. Through literature research, you find information that you didn’t know before. You can find facts, statistics, and situations that maybe you couldn’t find in regular research. In this project, we did a lot of literature research in order to write a persuasive essay. For my topic, it was especially hard to find new facts that would correlate with our current situation and the environment that we have grown up with. I found a lot of statistics and facts from 5-6 years ago, and not a lot of recent facts, so through literature research, I was able to expand my search and find what I needed to complete my essay. Not only that, but my essay was more solid through the research that I was able to find. I exposed myself to different viewpoints and was able to learn more about a topic that is important to me. I learned, through research, that, “Kids who had been victims only (who never bullied others) had greater risk for depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, generalized anxiety, panic disorder and agoraphobia as adults.” (Walton). I didn’t know about this, especially since most kids that are exposed to this, grow up with this kind of trauma on their shoulders. Most adults that did suffer from bullying as a child might grow up with certain disorders because of the trauma they experienced. This is so important for people to know about because then you can see just how much it can actually affect a person. Something else that helped change my perspective was, “Everyday, more than 280,000 students are physically attacked in schools and one out of ten students who drops out of school mentioned repeated bullying as a factor.” (Barrington, 3). This was surprising to me because adults don’t notice that kids are in fear for their lives, and that due to bullying, this can lead to them dropping out. Parents fear that their kids will drop-out of school because they “don’t like it” or because “they’re not interested”, when in reality, they could be in fear for their live sad not feel safe there anymore. Now, after finishing my essay and my zine, I realized just how important it is to bring this to people’s attention. It’s important to let others know just how much this can affect a student or a child.

Our Social Advocacy Zine

Our Exhibition/Zine Fest:

The Chula Vista Zine Fest was an event we had on April 28th, where we showcased our final zines, condensed essay’s and advocate stencil/background collage. At this Zine Fest, we talked to our community about our topics and why we chose those topics. At this exhibition, I felt the most proud of the work I was showcasing. I really loved our final zine, the layou, how professional and creative it looked, and that we worked together as a group to complete it. It looked amazing in its final stage and I’m so proud of how much time and effort we put into making a beautiful zine. I’m also very proud of my background collage and social advocate stencil because I had never made a stencil before in Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop, so being able to expose myself to something different was really fun and interesting. Through this project and producing a Zine Fest, I feel like the most important things I will take away from this are: Collaboration, Cooperation and Perseverance. This project was a lot of work, especially working together with other people, and I feel like I was able to bring a part of me to our final project and being able to showcase everything after we worked hard on it felt really good.

Social Media / Promotion Group

My Social Advocate and Interview!

I was given the chance to interview Leigh Rachel Faith Fujimoto about her work with Champions Against Bullying, where I talked to her about what she did to spread awareness and how she joined the group and company. Her work is so important to the community! Check out the button below to read our interview and the work she has done with Champions Against Bullying!