RISE: Healthy for Life is lucky to have not one, not two, but FIVE students working with us this semester!

Donniqua Rolle (left) and Gladys Bolawa (right) are master’s students in Public Health at ETSU and will work with RISE over three semesters on their Trilogy project. Gladys and Donni are developing a survey, listening circles, and interviews to gather baseline data from sexual assault and domestic violence (SA/DV) survivors on their experience seeking services following an ssault. They are working closely with the Survivor-centered SA/DV Working Group of Collective Impact for Emotional and Sexual Health.

Lily Shadden (left), Seth Short (middle), and Megayn Wolfenden (right) all are ETSU Human Services students doing service learning this semester. RISE seeks to provide meaningful experiences to all students who work with us, and we tailor projects to each person’s interests and experiences as well as where they would like to grow.

Lily rewrote a flyer about the importance of pronouns created for academic settings. She created two new versions, one suiteable for businesses and other organizations and one for the general public. RISE already used the new business-focused flyer for a Gender Diversity workshop for staff at the Johnson City Public Library. Lily also is creating a series of social media posts around survivor’s rights after sexual assault, resources for pregnant teens and their friends in our area, bullying, and sex ed myths and facts.

Seth Short will research and develop content for social media posts that:

• Educate trauma survivors about their own trauma responses and behaviors

• Encourage survivors to be compassionate with themselves.

• Share resources available when they are ready.

Megayn Wolfendent continues work RISE began with Bonnie Sepora, the Comminity Solutions Program Fellow who recently completed a practicum with RISE. Megayn will facilitate meetings and resource development around creating a short documentary on the LGBTQ+ experience in Upper East Tennessee. She will coordinate with a variety of organizations and constituents to determine what the goal of the project will be, who is interested in being involved, and how we can make the best use of resources available.

RISE will provide all five students with Trauma-informed Care training, which they have indicated will be useful in their future work.

We are so grateful for the opportunity to work with these passionate, creative, inquisitive students to do meaningful work that will benefit so many folx in our area!