Anika Nayak for Youth Leadership Retreat: Workshops

Speaker: Anika Nayak

Anika Nayak: Hi everyone! My name is Anika Nayak, I am a team mentor for this year's upcoming 2022 Riley's Way Foundation Youth Leadership Retreat, and I'm originally from Tampa, Florida, but I actually go to school in Berkeley, California. I attended the Retreat in 2019 at Timber Lake Camp with the Ryan Nece foundation and I'm really excited to be hosting a workshop!

Anika Nayak: Wow, there are so many reasons why I'm super excited for the 2022 Youth Leadership Retreat hosted by the Riley's Way Foundation. First, I'm super excited to meet new faces and collaborate with new leaders and really get to know everyone by sharing new perspectives and engaging and insightful conversations. Additionally, I'm super pumped that we're going to have such exciting interactive workshops focused on advocacy and activism and how to really amplify our voices based on social issues that we all really care about. Also, I'm here to have an amazing time and lots of fun with camp activities such as hiking and doing crafts. The 2022 Retreat is going to be amazing and I'm super excited for all the new experiences that we'll get to share together.

Anika Nayak: So, my workshop is all about how to take care of your mental health as an activist. Often times we do so much impactful work, whether it is advocating for causes that we care about, or amplifying the voices of marginalized communities, that we forget to address our own needs and take care of ourselves and listen to our inner voice. So, in this workshop you will learn how to take care of your mental health and practice self care while being an activist and doing important work and advocacy and organizing. We'll be doing a lot of interactive activities, such as journaling and some other fun self-care activities, in addition to learning about how to avoid burnout and how to really maintain a sense of calmness. So, I hope you join me in learning about mental health and self-care as an activist.