Evolving Minds Resilient Leaders Program

Presenter: Amanda Moebus, Microbiology, Global Public Health Scholars

Evolving Minds is an nonprofit organization started by former UMD student, Anthony Sartori, that focuses on spreading positive mental health techniques to various populations. In our weekly meetings, the Evolving Minds Ambassadors are taught various mental health practices such as mindful meditation and channeling joy with the hopes that we, the ambassadors, will spread the techniques that we learn to populations that we are a part of and/or have relationships with. Through fundraising and social media campaigns, the Evolving Minds Ambassadors as a whole hope to spread positive and empowering mental health awareness.

4 Comments

Catherine Cherfan

May 06, 2021

Hey Amanda! How would your experience as a Resilient Leader and the participants' experiences in the Evolving Minds Resilient Leaders Program differ in a face-to-face setting? Do you foresee any drastic changes in participation or the effectiveness of the four mindfulness techniques?

amoebus

May 10, 2021

Replying to

Hey Cathy! There are many times that I wish I could have met the other participants in person. However, part of me thinks that the mindfulness techniques were almost more (in some ways, I’m sure they may be less effective in others) in an online environment. In my opinion at least, it’s sometimes easier to be vulnerable when you are not face to face. In fact, there were some exercises where it was recommended to turn off your camera so you could be by yourself, with minimal distractions. However, I do hope that when more people start to be on campus, there will be a greater participation in the program, with maybe an even more effective hybrid experience.

snam02

May 06, 2021

Hi Amanda, how do you measure the success of your Resilience training in this project environment?

amoebus

May 10, 2021

Replying to

Hi! That’s a really great question, as it is really hard to physically measure success in an online environment like this one. The only way I can truly measure success is knowing my own takeaways from the training. However, at the end of our experience we all completed a reflection on how each of the four resilience training techniques affected us. In this way, we can reflect on our experience and measure personal success.