Jahzara Blake is the amazing High School Art/Media 2021 contest poster winner, hosted by ROR and sponsored by the Rotary Club of Sarasota Bay. We’re so excited to introduce you to her powerful work that blew us away for many reasons. Jahzara was fourteen and a member of the North Port High School Coexistence Club when she read Teen Guide To Health and entered the contest encouraged by the The Club’s Senior Advisor, Kathryn Berrios.
2021 marked the Art/Media contest’s first year. It was the middle of the Covid pandemic when schools and teachers were struggling to stay connected. While many schools and clubs in Florida were closed, Ms. Berrios took a chance and used what was a brand new wellness tool for teen health and the contest exactly the way they were designed to be used.
Ms Berrios knows that creativity is the magic education tool, both for teachers and for students. Yay, and one of her students won. This year Kathryn Berrios has taken the position of High School Instructional Facilitator, Sarasota County Schools, “I’ll be helping support schools to incorporate literacy through core curriculum and help bridge the achievement gap for the lowest quartile of learners,” she told me. Special Education Behavioral Specialist, Jamie Chavarria is excited to be taking over the Senior Advisor role of the Club this year and plans to jump into the contest opportunity 100%. We can’t wait to see what her students will submit.
ROR has been using memes and videos to engage a worldwide audience around behavior and mental health. We knew that teens could spread positive messaging better than anyone. The goal of the ROR contest is to Inspire high school students to think about what makes them healthy and then create an art project from a subject in the book, either in a club, or a class, or at home. Jahzara chose balancing your emotions as her subject and created a powerful calligram or word picture to illustrate negative and positive self talk. We have been writing about self- esteem for a decade, and this painting perfectly illustrates the conflict between confidence and despair that everyone experiences at one time or another.
“Juxtaposition” was inspired from Chapter 3, page 30 from the Teen Guide for Health about emotional health, “How can you balance your emotions when you’re not even sure what’s happening inside?” Jahzara Blake
In the ROR Art/Media contest’s first year, six students took home cash prizes totaling $7250. Three high schools on the West Coast of Florida had winners. First prize $5000 went to Desoto High School seniors, Mariela Vargas and Erica Juarez for their two TIKTok Videos, You Are Not Alone, and Spread Positivity. You Are Not Alone had over 2 million views, and the twinning has begun. The Spread Positivity campaign will begin in the new year. Runners Up, The Team of Victoria and Tina Tran and the single entry Joanna Malvas both winners from Pine View High School won $1000 each, and Jahzara Blake the poster winner from North Port High School won $250. The Rotary Interact Club of Desoto High School also received $500.
ROR will host the Art/Media contest again in the Winter/Spring/Summer of 2022. All high school students on the West Coast of Florida will be eligible to enter. There is no designated program in the Florida school system that currently teaches The Teen Guide To Health. Teachers can choose to use the book as a supplement to a health program or in a general education class, art class, or club. Teachers who worked with students last year came from different disciplines from a diversity programs, to General Education, Language Arts, and Rotary Interact Clubs. This year ROR will be offering an adopt a school program to make sure that any high school that wants a designated winner associated with a teacher or program in the school can have one. Next year we will have more poster winners and T-shirt design winners as well.
Contact us if you would like more information about sponsoring a Teacher or High School for a scholarship award next year.
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