By: Jack Peng, Staff Writer
On November 8th, Mills High School debuted the Real You Assembly and a fun mental health activity, with the mental health activity being a follow-up to the Mental Health Assembly on November 2nd. Students were split into groups and either attended the assembly or were lead through the activity by the leadership class. The event consisted of writing encouraging letters to victims of domestic abuse while another group spoke about the activity at the end of the Mental Health Assembly where students wrote about what they wish their parents, teachers, or peers knew. They shared several responses with students and, as most of the responses were about the stress of school, students questioned why and what Mills can do to help students. The activity was concluded by having students sign a poster saying that they will never have non-consensual sex. Students then rotated events, with those who had been participating in the activity going to the assembly and vice versa.
The Real You Assembly aimed to raise awareness of the actual meaning and implications of sexual consent among students. Planned by the district and an organization called, Real You, was presented at schools across the district. Our principal, Ms. Duszynski began by introducing the purpose of the assembly and the presenter, Anea Bogue. Bogue began by congratulating us on being the first generation to be open to talking about sexual consent. However, not open enough, she proposes that in a culture of consent, consent should be normalized and respect should be given to everyone but she claims this has yet to happen. Bogue then introduced terms related to sexual consent and their importance and presented data showing how common sexual misconduct is. Bogue ended her presentation by asking every student to do their part in stopping sexual misconduct and the taboos surrounding sex and sexual consent. These events informed students about mental health and sexual consent as well as what students can do to help those in need.
The Real You Assembly and the mental health activity raised awareness about sexual consent, depression, and anxiety. It shows the progress that we as a society have made in bringing sexual misconduct and mental health into the limelight and making it less of a social taboo. However, we need to do more to raise awareness on sexual consent and mental health such as advocate for these kinds of assemblies to be statewide or simply talk about it more.
