Wellness Challenge for Teens Kicks Off This Weekend

The Warm-up Week is about to end. Since Monday, March 14th, 14 teams of teen representatives from 41 countries (each team with 6 students with 6 different nationalities) have been working to conquer their first challenge: figuring out a time when each team can meet up to jointly determine their team name.

This process is about the ability to speak up for oneself; the ability to manage time and responsibilities; the ability to be empathetic to each other's needs and limitations. Most of all, this process is about how to be creative and make international friends.

This weekend all teams will be ready for our Kick-Off Global Session. To help guide our investigations and inquiries are two young professionals in the field of mental health for adolescents: Akerke Makhumd from Kazakhstan and live in the United Kingdom (left in the picture) for Section B and Kaitlin Serai from the USA (right on the picture) for Section A.

Akerke is a consultant at WHO and is currently coordinating mental-health-related projects at King’s College in London. Her consulting work with UNICEF previously focused on adolescent mental health in Europe and Central Asia in collaboration with a youth advisory group. Akerke wrote an exercise book about self-esteem which was published in Kazakhstan in both Russian and Kazakh languages. It addresses common myths around self-esteem and mental health in general. Akerke is passionate about working with young people across the world to raise awareness of mental health.

Kaitlin is a meditation and breathwork facilitator from the Art of Living / International Association for Human Values. Kaitlin is very passionate about spreading tools and techniques that boost the mental well-being of young people and educators across the United States. Kaitlin benefited from the SKY Campus Happiness program herself when she was a first-year college student at The Ohio State University (USA) in 2016. Ever since then, she saw it as her highest goal to bring these wellness practices to as many young people as possible. Her vision is to see every college campus be a happier, more stress-free place for ALL students, staff, and faculty and for the young people to thrive not only academically, but socially and emotionally.

Please join us to thank the guest speakers and wish all the teams good luck!

(For the background of this Challenge, please visit our Forum page.)