HNR 300 Spotlights
Beck Lukins
Beck Lukins: I have been working with three different organizations to spread sexual health & wellness education and consent awareness to the Grand Valley campus and to teens and young adults across Michigan. On campus, I work with the RecWell department as a member of their Wellness Information Team (WIT) and with the Women & Gender Equity Center as a Violence Prevention peer educator. For these commitments, I am a presenter who delivers programming to different student groups and organizations who request presentations from us. I meet weekly with my peer ed teams to talk about student issues and needs on campus, and how we can best address those needs. As a WIT member I also help to distribute resources to fellow students several times a month via a mobile cart that we push throughout campus. This cart contains safer sex supplies (condoms, lube, and dental dams) as well as stickers, chapstick, coloring pages, hand sanitizer, and pamphlets about other services and opportunities that RecWell offers. Off campus, I work as a facilitator for Planned Parenthood, where I deliver LGBTQ+-centered sex ed to teens and young adults aged 13-24. Here I work on delivering programming that is pleasure-focused, sex positive, medically comprehensive and fact based, all-inclusive, trauma informed, and empowering. I facilitate programs on an as-needed basis, and since the start of this course I have helped teach six workshops.
Through this work, I have become a leader at GV and stayed connected to communities I care about. I have learned a lot about community assessment and interdepartmental communication, as well as advertising and marketing skills. Through the WIT cart, I get lots of engagement opportunities with other students on campus, and I'm able to take note of what services students find helpful and what services students want changed or need more help with. This type of feedback is extremely helpful, and has taught me how to incorporate the desires of a community into program development and scheduling. These commitments have also kept me dependable through COVID changes and isolation struggles, and allowed me to keep purpose and motivation throughout a time of great uncertainty.
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