By Julie Anne Chaires
What do Healthy Hilltoppers Peer Health Educators do?
Healthy Hilltopper Peer Health Educators (HHPHE) is a club on the St. Edward’s campus with a mission to keep students holistically well while also empowering them to embrace their individual identities. The dialogue they generate among members and students on campus involves methods and practices to maintain both physical and mental wellness. This organization also circulates dialogue among students to embrace their unique selves and share with other students to empower each other to be successful in class and to make genuine friendships outside of class.
This organization is unique and beneficial because it focuses on the aspects of being a college student that no one likes to address or talk about in an open manner. They help students learn new coping skills for stressful work they are faced with in classes, new social interactions, and peer pressure they might face as incoming freshmen or transfer students. Promoting mental and physical health on campus is a subject left for students to find on their own volition, but what’s positively different about HHPHE is they provide and publicly promote the significance behind taking care of your mental and physical states as a college student.
What do students get out of participating in HHPHE?
HHPHE organizes events that educate students on holistic health both mentally and physically. These events promote wellness and generate a conversation about health issues and maintaining self-care in the high-stress environment of college. For example, one event they threw this past year was called “Wellness Wednesday” and it engaged students with ideas and tips on how to avoid letting their stress from social and academic life get the best of them.
How does HHPHE contribute to the St. Edward’s community?
HHPHE creates a space for students to seek information without feeling judged for their mental or physical states. This organization makes students feel comfortable enough to figure out how to cope with problems like being excluded based on background, mental health issues (like depression), and maintaining a healthy diet. When I asked Jenna Parro, the Wellness and Outreach Coordinator, about how HHPHE helps move students through problems of student life she responded with, “Through consistent outreach, both student-driven and staff-driven, we provide students with opportunities to learn and refine coping skills, particularly coping with stress.” This organization’s mission to help talk about wellness in multi-dimensional approaches helps students embrace their individuality, creates honest discussions on campus about health issues, and how their differences can bring together students in a new and positive way. Self-care is important for everyone in life, especially in college where the constant struggle to succeed socially and academically can put the health of a student on hold. HHPHE’s promotion of self-care brings a new relief to student life here on the St. Edward’s campus.
How can students get involved?
If you would like to get involved with this organization visit their website here. Or you can email jparro@stedwards.edu for more information on how to get involved with HHPHE.