Winning Applicant: Arielle Bivas from UCLA
Activities:
Since my start at UCLA, I have been actively interested
in equality and gender issues. I have been involved with
the Clothesline Project, an organization devoted to ending
sexual and gender violence. As a member of the publicity
committee, I used skills gained from both my Art and Communication
Studies majors to increase campus awareness about events
such as Denim Day, Take Back the Night, and the end of the
year Clothesline Display of shirts made by survivors of
violence. I completed the Clothesline Project's two weekend
Sexual Violence Awareness Advocacy Training, and then planned
and facilitated the training the following time. I was involved
in the Women for Change Week's Women for Change art exhibit
on campus. Currently, my greatest involvement is as an active
member of UCLA's Community Service Commission.
Community: When I first started at UCLA, I decided to
become a mentor through the UCLA branch of a national community
service organization called WYSE (Women and Youth Supporting
Each other). WYSE is a mentorship program which started
at UCLA in 1995 and subsequently spread to 12 campuses across
the country. Our mission is to give girls of all colors
and ages the confidence, knowledge and resources to make
educated decisions about their lives and their futures.
We mentor girls that attend a middle school that has been
targeted for its low socio-economic status and its relationship
to a nearby high school with a high teenage pregnancy rate.
We are curriculum based and conduct weekly sessions at the
middle school campus, which consist of fun activities and
open discussions on topics such as racism, sexism, healthy
relationships, body image, the politics of motherhood, future
options and broader women's issues.
In
addition to planning and facilitating these weekly group
sessions, I have developed yearlong one-on-one relationships
with one or two mentees each year, in which we have conversed
on the telephone, kept journals together, and gone on field
trips. Through the course of my first year of mentoring,
it became clear that WYSE would be the passion of my college
life. My involvement and interest in WYSE grew and in my
second year I took on a director's position of the UCLA
branch. I've continued as a director this year and taken
a larger role in restructuring our branch. Besides my commitment
to being a mentor, role-model and friend, as a director
of our branch I have worked on strengthening UCLA WYSE as
an organization. I have improved our program to give the
mentors a more active role, increase their passion and involvement,
and make them aware of the broader context of their participation
in WYSE. In making UCLA WYSE more organized and increasingly
participatory, a greater number of college women can have
the incredible experience that I've had of being a WYSE
mentor which will in turn, give more adolescent girls the
opportunity to have an understanding, supportive face to
look to.
I
plan to further my work with WYSE at the national level
by interning at our national resource office in the summer
and coming year. I hope to continue with WYSE for the rest
of my time in college and contributing to the organization
even after my graduation.
Career:
After obtaining my degree, I plan on continuing my education
in graduate school. I would like to do administrative work
for a non-profit organization such as WYSE. My course of
study at UCLA has also given me an interest in conducting
research on the influence of the media on our culture, particularly
the effect on the identity formation of young women. I intend
to do work that will raise societal awareness about the
inequality of opportunities given to youth and encourage
institutional efforts in schools or other organizations
to provide young people of all ethnicities, races, classes,
genders, and sexual orientations with a sense of confidence,
agency, and future.
Congratulations
again to Arielle Bivas! Will you be the next winner?
Apply online right now and give it your best shot. Good
luck!
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