Love yourself this Valentine’s Day

UWG’s Health and Wellness Department launched their Love Yourself First Campaign from Feb.1 until Feb. 14 so students can be their own Valentines. Health and Wellness Coordinator, Elizabeth Butts, worked alongside peer educators and students in order to make this possible.

“Love Yourself is not an arrogant campaign,” said Butts. “It’s about being grounded in who we are and what we want in life. Until you love yourself you won’t be able to love others.”

Several activities and events were created to allow students to look at Valentine’s Day in a different way. Students can take this two week event as an opportunity to love themselves more and improve their emotional as well as social wellness.

Social media took part in this journey for Butts and her staff as well.

“Everyone loves selfies,” exclaimed Butts. “It’s not just about how you look but how you feel about yourself too.”

Selfies have been all the rage lately in social media and Butts believed it was the ultimate symbol of self-love and a great activity for students to participate in.

Women’s body issues are also among one of the many problems that Butts wanted to fix with this campaign. She believed this would allow female students to love themselves for being who they are and discover the beauty within themselves.

Terry Ducker helped create this campaign and made it her mission to break the age-old ideas that have come with Valentine’s Day, which can be found in the Health Student 101 magazine by Health and Wellness.

“When it comes time for Valentine’s Day we don’t want them to feel like half a person,” said Butts. “A relationship is two wholes, not two halves.”

Peer Educators helped make these events possible and strived to set an example of self-love on campus. Each of them signed a contract agreeing to be role models in all they do for Health and Wellness.

“It’s an internal kind of things so it about psychological wellness,” said Butts. “If we love our selves we will expect people to treat us with respect.”

Xavier Fisher along with many other peer educators created activities for students to participate in throughout the campaign. He’s led all artistic expression of self-love activities for the Love Yourself campaign for of the creative events.

Students will take selfies, decorate shirts and self-love graffiti to show off their own personalities and strengths. Most of the activities are held right in between Starbucks and Love Valley on campus.

Many of the events will be held in the campus center as well in the midday or evening so there can be as many students as possible in attendance.

Later on this month the Protect our pack campaign will be launched in order to educate students on sexual assault and self-defensive.

“It’s time for students to feel empowered,” said Butts. “And the Protect Our Path Campaign helps with that.”

Like the Love Yourself Campaign, this event will aid to students’ emotional, social wellness, and even spiritual wellness. This begins Feb. 9 and Feb. 30 and will have a series of events and activities throughout campus.

Erin

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