“I feel confident.”
“I feel happy.
“I feel comfortable.”
Each of the kids at the Booker T. Washington Community Center took turns stating how they felt in that moment. When a student would say they felt “good,”, they were asked to choose a different word, a more specific one they could point to on the feelings chart.
“It’s important for us to know how you are feeling,” Lavern Rogers told the kids. “We need to know how you feel and be honest, because we can’t do anything to help you if we don’t know how you feel.”
The students were participating in Macon Mental Health Matters’ (MMHM) Choosing Peace session. It’s an empowering program designed specifically for youth and champions of peace. It allows students to deal with tough situations in a peaceful and safe manner while talking with mental health professionals.
“For the last 15 to 20 years, I’ve been teaching adults about how to have relationships that don’t include violence, and it came up in our conversation one time, ‘why didn’t anyone teach us this when we were younger?’,” said Dr. Gloria Cisse with the Southern Center for Choice Theory and creator of Choosing Peace.
The program has been running for about two years , but it has seen more children this year, especially during summer camps. The sessions happen every Wednesday at the Booker T. Washington Community Center (401 Monroe Street) from 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., and Dr. Cisse takes the sessions to other community and recreation centers to reach more kids. The program is free and open to everyone.
“We folded the learning into games and videos. We’ll share a video, play a game, then we have a conversation,” said Dr. Cisse. “Sometimes it can be ‘boring’ because it’s learning, but mostly they have fun and do learn a lot.”
Dr. Cisse and her MMHM team always provide food at these sessions, as they have learned that food helps bring kids to the table, which leads to talking and sometimes getting help.
“This is a great opportunity to learn effective communication and problem-solving skills to foster peaceful resolutions,” said MMHM Coordinator Andrea Cooke. “We want students to find their peace and spread it throughout our community.”
Click here to see more MMHM events happening each week.