STEM-In-Action Grant Fall Follow Up: Shanti

Welcome to the second edition of 22-23 STEM-In-Action Grant Fall Follow Ups, where we check in with our 22-23 STEM-In-Action Grant winners to see what they've accomplished since NJ&EE! The U.S. Army Educational Outreach Program (AEOP) awards five STEM-In-Action Grants of up to $5,000 to eCYBERMISSION teams wishing to further develop and implement their projects in their communities. Today, we're featuring 7th-grade (now 8th-grade) team, Shanti.

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Mental health is no joke; there are thousands of children, teens, and even adults who go through mental trauma every year. Throughout our research, we noticed that the younger generation wasn't getting the attention they needed regarding mental health challenges. A U.S. Surgeon General Report states that 1 in 5 students will experience a mental health trauma at some point during their schooling. Yes, there are counselors and therapists, but we saw that students weren’t open with them; they needed to talk to their own generation. 

Teen mental health was never in a great place, but the Covid-19 pandemic just exacerbated that. From 2009-2019, almost 20% of youths aged 3-17 had a behavioral, developmental, mental, or emotional disorder. On top of that, suicidal tendencies increased by over 40% in high schoolers. These mental health challenges were some of the leading causes of disabilities and even deaths in these age groups. Mission Shanti aims to help kids struggling with this by providing them a safe space to share their emotions with trained counselors, peers, and friends. 

We are Mission Shanti from Naperville, Illinois. Our mission is to help middle and high school students feel more confident and connected by enhancing their social and emotional well being. Our team members are Leya, Naisha, and Nitya. We started off as three seventh graders, watching our peers undergo stress and anxiety while trying to hide it under a smile. When our seventh grade science teacher introduced us to the eCYBERMISSION STEM competition, we took it as an opportunity to address the issue we saw within our community. Now, we are three confident eighth graders with a plan to help those in need.

We are implementing our idea in two ways:

School Club

Our club (The Shanti Club) is a safe space for students to express their innermost feelings and thoughts. Additionally, we spread awareness about mental health and some current challenges (e.g. anxiety and depression). Our club provides students with coping mechanisms for dealing with mental health obstacles, motivational guest speakers, and study tips to effectively survive middle school. We discuss a new topic during each meeting. 

Website

Our website is a purely informational source for kids to use. It’s equipped with symptoms of anxiety and depression, coping mechanisms for kids to heal at their own pace, and a resource page if they need an adult’s help. In the future, we hope to add a daily mood tracker where kids can track their emotions throughout the day and keep them in check.  Here is the link to our current website: https://shanti.asksac.com.

So far, we have hosted one club meeting and celebrated Suicide Awareness Week throughout our school. Since the start of school, we have put a post-it note on every locker, each one containing a kind message; handed out wristbands with motivational messages to kids; and hosted our first club meeting, where we drew kind symbols and messages on the sidewalk in front of our school. In our next meeting, we invited KidsMatter, a local organization, to teach students about anxiety and depression.

We hope to use our grant money to further improve and implement our cause. For example, we’d like to buy a better website designing platform, so we can add interactive content (e.g. a daily mood tracker) to our website. We’d also use our STEM-In-Action Grant money to supply game materials, hire guest speakers, and host events for our club. Finally, we’ll use some of our Grant money for marketing in order to spread the news about our club. For instance, we bought custom t-shirts to wear at school that promote our club.

By working on each of these components individually, we hope to make Mission Shanti reach farther than just our middle school - our city, and maybe one day our country. While we are always aiming higher, we don’t want to lose sight of our original goal, to help people. To reach even one child is an accomplishment for us.

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Mission Shanti's goal to support mental health in teens is so important, and we love that they are taking such active measures to help their fellow students! We can't wait to see what they have accomplished when we check in with them again in the spring. 

eCYBERMISSION registration for the 2023-2024 competition is open at www.ecybermission.com/register, and Mini-Grant applications are are open until November 16 at www.ecybermission.com/minigrantprogram. For questions about eCYBERMISSION or help with registration, email missioncontrol@ecybermission.com.

Faith Benner

Sr. Communications and Marketing Specialist