AB SAFE AND SOUND @UCSD

AB Safe & Sound is a team, affiliated with Alternative Breaks @UCSD and Reto Juvenil Internacional, dedicated to education and awareness of youths locally and in Belize on the importance of sexual health and safety. We strive to foster a safe community that promotes healthy lifestyles. Our vision is to build a team of individuals who will tear down barriers of HIV/AIDS and encourage survivors to break free from the cycle of sexual violence.

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Membership Spotlight: Quang Nguyen

Throughout my experience with Alternative Breaks thus far, I have learned so much; not only about HIV/AIDS and the community in Double Head Cabbage Village, Belize, but also about social justice, social inclusion, and other topics that my peers face right here at UC San Diego. I was fortunate enough to have had a family that supported and sheltered me from many of the struggles our family experienced. My family never had much, but it never seemed like it. However, privilege is not just having sufficient means to live a comfortable life. It is not just the ability to endure daily living expenses and have material possessions. Privilege is also very much a state of mind. It means that one does not have to worry about various problems that others from a certain socioeconomic status, race, gender, etc. may experience on a daily basis. This was something that I have learned recently, and this notion inspires me to seek change in communities around the world. I joined AB to learn more about the world around me; while I know that there is much social justice work that needs to be done, I never really knew specific issues and what my role is in solving these issues. I joined AB to invest my time into a community in need. I believe the most impact service is not seen in numbers. It is not about how large the community our group services to, but how impactful that service is in individual members of the community.

I am most passionate about social justice issues regarding healthcare inequality. Bridging disparities in healthcare for uneducated and underrepresented communities is really on my heart. I am really passionate about family health and health education. Particularly, I want to focus on educating parents about what they can do to improve their children’s health as well as showing them how to teach their children to take care of themselves. Personal health really begins in the home and the values instilled by your family in early years. For many reasons, AB Safe and Sound is a perfect fit for me. Through our service in health education, I hope our team can continue the work of addressing the stigma surrounding sexual health and HIV/AIDS and preventing climbing incidence of HIV/AIDS for the next generation in the Belize community.

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Membership Spotlight: Leira Digma

I joined AB because I wanted to take strides towards becoming an active citizen. I am looking forward to finding my place in creating positive change in the world, and learning how I can make this change both direct and sustainable. I am so excited to put all of the knowledge and skills we’ve been learning to good use in Belize and empower the high school students of this community that faces a high-risk of HIV infection. Empowerment is extremely powerful and I cannot wait to see the ripple effect we all create! I am also excited to apply everything we’ve learned and will learn in Belize to the local communities that surround us. Before our EOT’s, I honestly did not know much about HIV/AIDs. My knowledge of it was basically limited to what is taught about its contraction in introductory biology classes. Now, I am grateful to have expanded this knowledge to include both biological and socio-cultural aspects. My favorite meeting was probably our first meeting during fall quarter. I remember being late because I just had a midterm and I was really nervous to meet the group of people I was going to begin this journey with. I quickly realized that not only is everyone kind and selfless, but they are also inspiring and passionate and continue to push me to be the very best version of myself possible. I also really enjoyed our meeting a couple of weeks ago where Ryan and I led a privilege walk that allowed everyone to reflect on the different intersectionalities of their identities and learn the differences and similarities between our lives and those of people in Belize. So far, AB has allowed me to broaden my outlook on the world, which has helped me make more educated and inclusive decisions in my everyday life! I can’t wait for our service trip and everything the world has in store for us

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Membership Spotlight: Jisoo Lee

Coming into this school year, I knew I wanted to get more involved and take a more active role in serving the community. While my first two years were great as I focused on school and my personal interests as I transitioned into college, I felt that I was finally ready to break out of my comfort zone and be a part of something that was outside of just myself. I found out about Alternative Breaks through some friends and immediately knew that it was something I wanted to do as it would be an opportunity to do direct service with a close-knit group of people who shared my passion of health education and preventative sexual health! As a Public Health major, these ideas of preventative interventions and reducing health disparities among disadvantaged communities are ingrained into my brain, so AB Safe and Sound was the perfect match for what social justice issues I wanted to face. I am so excited to go to Belize to not only do what I can to spread awareness about HIV/AIDS among this high-risk community, but also to build relationships with these high schoolers and to learn things from them that I can keep with me and continue to build upon for the rest of my life.

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Membership Spotlights!

Hello Everyone! In this series we hope to give each one of our members a space to public reflect on however they might be feeling about our upcoming trip! Check out #Membership Spotlight to see them all :) 

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EOT: HIV Basics

We are five weeks away from our trip to Double Head Cabbage Village, Belize! As such, participants Alessandra and Andrew gave an Education-Orientation-Training presentation focused on building a foundation of knowledge of HIV and its presence in Belize. From myths and terminology to history and biology, the presentation gave a broad background of the virus and its tests and treatment. The presentation then zoomed in on statistics to shed light on populations affected by HIV in Belize’s six districts. One observation was that females make up a greater percentage of individuals who get tested for HIV, while males contribute more to the country’s HIV-related deaths, according to the 2015 UNAIDS statistical report.

Our partner at Reto Juvenil International (http://www.retojuvenilcr.org/en/) told us the best thing we can do for the students we meet in Belize is instill hope. So, we took some time to reflect and write down and share what drives us and will motivate us to continue doing our best in Belize, in Alternative Breaks, and beyond. 

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EOT TIME: Let’s talk about Sex

Did we get your attention? Last weeks Education, Orientation and Training activity was lead by our members Jisoo and Neal and it’s only fair to be talking about this on Valentines Day. The EOT mainly focused on how HIV is contracted and ways to protect against all sorts of Sexually transmitted diseases (STD). Did you know that HIV isn’t transmitted by air, water, saliva, sweat, tears, through kissing, insects, pets or by sharing the toilet?!? Wow. A few of us didn’t know this, and we hope to enlighten you all about these common myths that surround HIV. So then how does one protect themselves from all these STDs that are floating around? Well I’m super glad you asked! A couple ways to protect yo-self is to definitely use a condom, get tested (it’s super quick and easy), get vaccinated (for things like HPV, unfortunately there’s no vaccine for HIV, yet) and many many more!

Since we’ll be headed to Belize, we also found some stats on the prevalence of HIV in the Belizean population. As of 2015, there is an estimated 3600 people infected with this STD. The Belizean population itself is estimated to be around 360,838 people. To bring this closer to home, as of 2013, there were around 5,334 new cases of HIV infections in California, and about 307 new cases in San Diego. Thanks for tuning in and hope to see y’all on the next one!

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Alternative Weekends: Menstruation and Homelessness

In our never ending efforts towards active citizenship, a few of our participants chose to engage themselves in other Social Justice Issues! Alternative Weekends is a program within Alternative Breaks that gives participants the opportunity to serve the local community, and this quarter the chosen SJIs were menstruation and homelessness! Featuring a presentation on the intersectionationality of menstruation by speaker Shawna Held-Hook, Leira, Cathy, and Ryan worked with non-profit organization #HappyPeriod to package menstruation products together and then a few groups went out to hand them to homeless residents of San Diego! Other groups hand delivered the packages to LGBTQ youth housing at Sunburst Apartments and Monarch School.

Here are their takeaways from this weekend:

Cathy:

“As we were walking through their neighborhood, I was telling everyone to take care, have a nice day, hello, etc. and I saw this sign in this woman’s home that said, ‘SMILE! You’re beautiful!!! :)’ It made me cheese and I immediately said, ‘You’re beautiful too!’ and she responded with a grin, ‘Thank you, you’re all beautiful!’ At that moment, I wanted to take a photo with her for keepsake, but I’m not much of a photo person anyway, so my group and I continued on our way. HOWEVER, we eventually turned around on the street, so when I saw her again, I was hecka happy. I ran over and asked if I could take a picture with her for my own sake to remember her positivity. She was like, ‘Yes!!’ and stood up, put her arm out to me, and I leaned in. At first, I wasn’t sure whether or not I should touch her because of taboo and I’m a germaphobe, but I shouldn’t be thinking like that towards a human being and I definitely acknowledge that.

We took the picture and she asked to see it. Once she saw it, she was so smiley and started to tell me about her granddaughter (or daughter?) who’s currently playing basketball in high school. After that, we hugged and it was such a tight and warm one. For the record, she didn’t smell ‘bad’ or anything, so screw stereotypes of the homeless. Just a really humanizing moment in the issue of homelessness, ya know? Every time I look at that photo (I’ve looked at it quite a few times today), I’m mesmerized by her pearly whites, beauty, and grace.

Just because I did service today doesn’t mean that I’m gonna go hug every homeless woman I see. It’s hard to break down the barriers and structures that my parents and society have taught me. I definitely think it was the environment of my situation and Alternative Weekends that made me feel brave enough to do something like that. For example, if I was with my mom, I wouldn’t randomly go hug a homeless woman, let alone a stranger, nor do I think I will start conversations with homeless people at stoplights after this experience. However, I can start having a more open mind of ALL people. I can also start carrying more pads to hand out to the homeless, since I usually don’t have cash on me. Period powaaaa!”

Leira:

“I really enjoyed this weekend and, more than anything, it made me reflect on the privileges that I have. Also, this quarter has been really tough academically for me and I'm finally taking classes that actually have to do with my major, but this weekend was really motivating in that it makes me want to keep studying so that I can use my skill set to help better social justice issues like these. I learned a lot about the intersectionality of menstruation and homelessness, two extremely stigmatized issues, and I like that the service is super hands-on and direct.”

Ryan:

“From a the perspective of someone who doesn’t menstruate, this weekend’s educational aspect was huge for me. Our speaker Shawna was amazing in how enthusiastic she was about menstruation and how passionate she was about fighting the stigma surrounding it. She brought in many different menstrual products and this weekend really was a door being opened into an entirely new world; a world that half the population has to live through once a month. Just being around so many positive individuals openly discussing and asking questions about menstruation taught me more than I’ve learned about the subject in the previous 22 years of my life. Thank you Shawna, and thank you Alternative Weekends for the amazing experience!”

Photo of Cathy and her new friend! More photos will be uploaded here when available.

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EOT: Privilege Walk; Cultural Values and Beliefs

This week’s Education,Orientation, and Training activity was led by Leira Digma and Ryan De Leon! They shared cultural values, beliefs, and glimpses of daily life in Belize, and drew contrast with our lives here at UCSD with a privilege walk! During the walk, they presented statements that participants stepped forward if they identified with. For example, “Step forward if you’ve had to share a room outside of college”. Steps were cumulative and at the end of the activity, most people had taken a different number of steps. The objective of the privilege walk is to visually represent how we perceive and how aware we are of our own privilege as we go through life. 

We’re most aware of the privileges we don’t have, and as part of Alternative Breaks we seek to educate ourselves on the privileges we have in comparison to those that we seek to provide service for in Belize. We thank Leira and Ryan for their activity!

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AB Retreat 2017 starting with STRONG DIRECT service to help I Love a Clean San Diego with their beach clean up! Silver Strand State Beach in South San Diego is the home and nesting grounds of the Western Snowy Plover, who will be coming back in the coming weeks. Today, we cleaned up their natural habitat by removing trash, signs, fencing, and invasive plants to ensure the Plovers have a clean, safe home to return to!

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HALLOOOO

Welcome to our Tumblr. May you read lots, Laugh loud, and Join us in our journey to Belize.