Black Culture Club hosted three weeks of "Wellness-Wednesday" which discussed the intersection of race and mental health in a safe space, on Feb. 2nd, 9th and 16th. Week one was billed with “LET’S BREAK DOWN THE STIGMA!” week two was “Coping Skills,” and the final week was "Black Joy.”
The idea started off with how “last year, Everett High School had a very extensive Black History Month program, and I thought this was something that was really interesting where the students were doing presentations on the schools,” Kristy Magras, who is the Black Culture Club advisor, expressed.
Senior co-presidents Christelle Jean and Micaela Henry, as well as Magras were in charge of putting the program together with the help of Taysia Holmes, a social worker at Jenkins House.
“Especially within the Black community, mental health is stigmatized—you just don't talk about it. You don't know therapy is a good thing. And we wanted to break that stigma, that stereotype, by talking about it and sharing our feelings,” Magras stated.
For the first week, they got to know each other, talked about mental health and did not get into much. The second week they got into “Thinking Traps" which were some grounding skills, and also touched on how to avoid things like jumping to conclusions, ignoring points or blowing things out of proportion.
Magras said she hopes the club could host these talks year-round. She also hopes that they “remain able to talk about strategies of coping, and not just mental health issues, but just our own personal selves.”
With that, Malden High School wrapped up February with Door Decorating and HBCU Spotlights.
