November 1st, 2014

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Being in GB has been difficult, I really like being in the program but it’s on a Friday and I have more classes afterwards and some weekends I have to be in Heredia, but yesterday showed me the importance of this program.

Being a teenager is complicated, there are so many situations that we go through and many times we feel alone, we feel like nobody is going through the same thing that we are, but that is not true. Yesterday we talked about insecurities and this a very crucial topic because many teenagers suicide themselves or put their lives in danger due to insecurities, and this is something that happens all around the world. This session it was more about the students and David interacting with them and it was very powerful. I was glad to be present even though I didn’t contribute as much I was still a support and the girls at the group got to know that they could come and talk to me about anything if they really needed someone to talk.

I’m not going to mention names but a student shared with us how he left very insecure about his acne problems, he told us the things that he did to hide them and to get rid of them because having them many him feel really bad about himself. David gave him really good advice and was able to help him because he also help the same way some times. This was very powerful beucase the student is shy, but throughout  the weeks he has changed and now he even shared really personal feeling with us and he even said that since he has been coming to the program he has felt really confident about himselve and is glad to have this space to share with others.

This session made me realize how important is to have places like this for teenagers around the world because with this type of support we could stop suicides at a young age and also prevent teenagers from harming themselves, being a teenager who had health problems unintentionally I’m very grateful to help others and prevent this to happen to them. Even though it is hard to be in GB feel good with myself after each session.

GB Students: Left: Zelenia, Melanie, and Bernabe. Middle: Randy: Right: Marco (Toño), Jake and Nico.

On other terms yearbook. This year I don’t want to have a parent supervisor because this is a student project. Also, Alex the mother who was helping us can’t help us this year and the other mother who was interested in helping us never got back to me again so I feel like I can do it on my own specially this year that I’m supervising everything, plus nobody know how yearbook works as well as I do.

Yearbook has been going well, however there has been times where Yaritza wants to lead and change the idea because that is part of her personally and she likes to contradict people. This was a challenge for me at first but unlike last year where I didn’t know where to draw the lines of friend and leader, this year I am more confident and don’t let her change our plans only because she wants to. I know that she doesn’t like it but she also need to follow the group and I’m open to suggestion, I’m always asking for their opinion. This has been tricky but I try not to be to harsh while still showing that there is a time for suggestions. One thing that I really need to come up with a plan for next year is pictures because my photographers are not taking pictures even though I remind them every week and Nadja does to (well I hope she does because she is in charge of that). This is where I am delegating the most and I’m disappointed because the “photographers” asked to have this job and they are not doing it and I’m always reminding them about it, I hope that they really start working on the pictures in this last month.