Nabuguzi. Kiwanuka
I went for an impromptu meeting last Wednesday. I carried one of these Thrivease baddies and showed it to the person I had to meet. At first instance, according to him, the product is premium and that it is meant for “the white kids”. This, he said because I’d mentioned that I had a teen engagement with some teenagers from a certain school.
Now Steve Jobs would possibly hate the idea that I did that because according to him “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them”. But I’d say that just like there is an exception to every general rule, there is a middle ground to this notion.
For close to 6 months, I’d worked on the content of this Journal – the name, the prompts, guiding conversations, et al. I had revisited my teenage experiences, I remembered a classmate that attempted suicide in S.2, I thought about the teenage experiences the guests on Hash Time with Nabuguzi Kiwanuka shared. What are the small steps that could have been taken before the chaos broke? I thought I was done until I was told that the language was a bit advanced for a teenager. I did a detour and invested a few more weeks to rework it.
The teenagers thought it to be a great product but they didn’t like the name because a product with the word “mental” in the title was going to make them susceptible to being bullied. That stung!
How do I raise mental health awareness while erasing the word “mental”? It dawned on me that normalizing conversations on mental health for young people or anyone for that matter, comes with first creating safe spaces. So, we chose ‘Teen Personal Development Journal’ to meet them where they are – while still integrating mental wellness tools throughout the content to make it easier to have deeper conversations over time.
So who is the TPDJ for?
The Journal is for African teens exploring big questions on self-esteem, boundaries, emotional awareness, their relationships and who they’re becoming. It is to prepare them to be #RootedToThrive adults and not surviving ones.
Ugshs. 65K (MoMo – 198023 or Airtel Pay – 4358501)
You can also check out Nuria-Your Store – https://nuriakenya.com/?s=Thrivease+&post_type=product for a copy. They deliver worldwide.
This post was created with our nice and easy submission form. Create your post!
