Hawaya’ guys?
It’s been a semester and a half for me being a student at University College Dublin and much part of it seems to be great! Although, life at UCD is pretty nice, fun and there’s some gig going on- campus, but there are grey areas as well. Sometimes, you need a break from everything and just relax! Even Computer Science doesn’t sounds cool at that moment :-(
Now comes in action the people at ‘Welfare Crew’ and ‘Please Talk’ at UCD. These are angel like guys at UCD that will help you out during tough times. They organise one of the best events I’ve ever attended on campus and were the happiest days of my life in UCD. The good part, these events are free, full of fun and there’s plenty of food and tea around. I’ll describe few events that I attended (as well those I didn’t) over here-
Mind, Body and Soul
This event happened in second last week of September 2014 and was my first welfare event I attended. Three days full of fun, laughter, culture, art and free tea! There was live music, laughter yoga (where you laugh your lungs off), puppy cuddling (I missed that part), jumbo size board games- reminds me of Harry Potter’s chess. Here’s a time- wrap video of graffiti art at the festival (that symbol of ‘peace’ was made by me).
Sex Out Loud- Consent Comes First!
This was a week long event across campus aimed at sexual health and awareness talking about sex and everything related. I was very unfortunate to miss this event due to hectic experiments/ projects, presentations and assignments (sometimes, Computer Science isn’t that cool!) and post- graduate ball (my first ever ball). I heard there were talks, movie screening and a dance workshop. I’m sharing the poster of the event here.
UCD Wellness Week
Third event by Welfare Crew, this event basically consist of talks and seminars about mental heath, well- being, healthy lifestyle and stress- relief. As always, there was tea events as well! I got the chance to attend one of the workshop on dealing with stress. It was delivered by a very friendly professional lad Ronan from one of the organizations (I forgot the name). The workshop went for around 2 hours and talked about the steps to deal with stress in our daily routine. It was my first workshop of this kind, usually I can be found at most tech- related workshops! Here is the serene poster from the event.
Please Talk Day
Let me start this event with the motto of Please Talk-
Talking is a sign of strength.
Please Talk Day 2015 was organised by a student run organization, Please Talk. It was a day event and one of its kind, no lectures/ seminars or workshops. There were rabbits, sheep, goats, ducks and llamas to play with. It was a perfect ambience at the event along with lovely music and juggling around There was tea, coffee and snacks! I just got few minutes to go down there (as I had to go for my programming classes right after :-( ) At the end of the event, there was a balloon launch, a picture of which I’m putting down. Check out more pictures on their facebook page.
Welfare Crew Penguins
So, these were the happenings aimed at mental health and wellness for UCD Students. There’s a group of Samaritans, popularly known as Penguins (as they stick together and are always happy) to help you de- stress, listen your problems and offer you help. Not to forget, Maeve, the welfare and equality officer at UCD Students Union is one of the happiest person I met in UCD.
Thanks for reading :-)
return 0; ( I have got a bad habit of ending every thing by this statement, Computer Science effect)
Saransh.
Related Articles- The College Welfare Officer, The best moments in UCD.
^All pictures are taken from the facebook event pages.