On Thursday, February 25, Lucero and I had the pleasure of presenting a Healthy Relationships workshop to the Hmong Student Association at Berkeley (HSAB). As a Hmong student and general member of HSAB myself, I was incredibly excited to be presenting on behalf of SHEP again since I also did a Sex 101 workshop for HSAB in the fall.
We began the night with a very interactive skit activity. Upon the request of the HSAB officers, Lucero and I had prepared about eight different scenarios of healthy and unhealthy relationships, and had people get into pairs and trios to act out their specific scenario. After each group performed, we had the audience guess if it was a healthy or unhealthy relationship and to give their reasoning why. It was very interesting to hear different perspectives because despite the obvious indicators of what type of relationship it was, a lot of people had great insight on the subtler details. Unfortunately, this activity took a bit longer than we anticipated because of folks who arrived late, but I still think it was a great activity that gauged the knowledge of our audience and helped everyone ease into our event.
After that, we jumped into our power point presentation. I presented on the different types of relationships, which included monogamous and non-monogamous relationships as well as what healthy and unhealthy relationships look like. Lucero finished it off with communication skills and tips to communicate effectively when initiating relationships and dealing with conflict.
We ended the night with a group discussion by asking three critical questions (two from HSAB officers and one from Lucero) of everyone in attendance. Because there was such a large turnout (about 20-30 people), we broke up into 4-5 smaller groups to intimately discuss the thought questions before coming back together as a large group to share what our groups talked about.
One thing that I often felt was missing (and needed) from the progressive Asian Pacific Islanders (API) and SEA (South East Asian) spaces on campus was the opportunity to talk about healthy relationships and sexual health in general. I am beyond proud and excited that HSAB is taking an active step to provide safe events to talk about these gender and sexual health issues. Overall, this was a successful workshop and an overall wonderful evening with a great group of people.
~Sexpert Linda
P.S. Did I mention that HSAB provided free cheesy sticks for everyone??? They were delicious! Proof below!
SHEP Talk 