Asian culture stresses the idea of holding in our mental health problems and not sharing them with others. I learned, however, that speaking to someone about my own resulted in my being happier and less stressed. My Puksta Project will educate Asian Americans to speak up about their mental health issues, address them, and realize how much better life can be.
Archives: Scholars
Scholar / Project
Matthew Wilkin
After four years active military, I bring new and different experiences to a college campus. But that background also presents challenges that few can understand. My Puksta Project aims to address the many challenges military people have when returning to civilian life, whether on a college campus or in the general population.
Miranda Johnson
Project: My Puksta Project for the upcoming academic youth is called RECIPROCITY, which stands for Reciprocating Progress in the City. The pilot program will involve CU Denver Mentors collaborating with Denver High School students. The mentors will be providing their students with opportunity, community and a sense of importance. It is through new found confidence that our youth will feel empowered to be young leaders themselves. By experiencing service learning and activities outside of the classroom eventually our youth will have the resources to return home to awaken their communities and address the deep and personal roots of their neighborhoods social inequalities.
Inspiration: My inspiration stems from wishing that I had a personal, one-on-one mentor as I was entering into high school and college. Every kid deserves a mentor that inspires them and acts as a resource of support and trust. Unfortunately, not every child has such a guiding individual in their lives due to circumstances at home, issues in their community or simply not having the available resources. I hope my Puksta Project can change that. Even if the impact is small at first, I believe it has the potential to grow and reach more kids each and every year.
Future Plans for Project: In this civic engagement work, I hope to impact the lives of our youth. I want them to walk away from my program knowing that they are capable of social change.
Monay Turnbough
Patrycja Humienik
“Dance is medicinal,” writes my pen pal, Patrice, from solitary confinement. According to the Prison Policy Initiative’s 2017 report, Patrice is one of over 2.3 million people in the clutches of the U.S. criminal justice system. Dances for Solidarity-Denver is the local chapter of a national initiative sharing dance through letter writing with people in solitary confinement, who are excluded from prison programming. We share a 10-step movement sequence through letters, and our pen pals add to the list. We are working on a collaborative performance project with our pen pals in solitary confinement.
Sarah Sunderlin
Joeylyn Corder
Jesus Ochoa Mendoza
Eduardo Antonio Hernandez
Project: My Puksta project is an after school mentoring program to empower students in believing that education is for them.
Inspiration: I was lucky enough to have a mentor in my life that pushed me to continue higher education. But I believe the conversation can start in middle school instead of junior of high school.
Future Plans for Project: Impacting the students is my main goal. I want to be someone they can talk to and at the same time make them have hope.
Anarely Marquez-Gomez
Project: Raices is a community organization which provides legal services and presentations to immigrants in the Denver area and beyond. I have partnered with the AILA and various groups to provide legal workshops on various themes such as, “What to do if ICE is at your door,” “Roadways to Citizenship,” and individual connections with lawyers. The project has had tremendous success and has helped bring ease of mind to the community!
Inspiration: I am a Dreamer and I have always noticed the crippling fear that swept through the community due to a lack of knowledge about individual rights.
Future Plans for Project: I hope to bring knowledge to the community and allow them to extend their full potential by giving them the confidence necessary to navigate the legal system.
