Toleen AJ

For the month of Ramadan I decided to give out giveaways to all the neighbors in the compound I live in. My mom made the 'maamool with dates' that she's best known for. I then went to the 'Capital mall' to get small bowls with different writings on them to place the maamool in. I bought clear wrappings from 'Day to Day' and wrapped each bowl and placed them in a plastic bag with a name tag on it. Lastly, I went out and gave them out to my neighbors. I learned how nice it is to send out ramadan gifts and receive them from your loved ones. I felt proud and happy sending them treats that they can enjoy with their family. Seeing the smiles on their faces as they opened the door gave me this nice feeling of love and warmness. I felt like they all appreciated these small giveaways I prepared.

As per our tradition, first day of Ramadan is always spent with my family from my dad's side. For the first day, I decided to make this special Ramadan sweet called 'Qatayef' since it is everyone's favorite dessert. I placed it in a round plate and made it look like a flower . Doing this made me realize when I stay active during fasting hours, I don't feel tired and exhausted like I usually do when I sit all day. I was glad to see all my family members enjoy the dessert I made.

Since today is Mother's Day I decided to organize a bouquet of flowers along with a bento cake to give out to all the amazing mothers around me who made me feel like their own daughter. I gave them out to my mother of course, along with both my aunties and 2 of my neighbors. I learned that sometimes you meet people who also make you feel like their own daughter even though they aren't your biological mother. Seeing my mom and aunties happy made me feel like my small gift had a beautiful impact on them.

This week is all about empowering and valuing women. International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. In regards to that, we decided to post content related to this day; I designed an insta post with a quote that says "Empowered women, empower women". This week taught me how strong women are and how its important to make them feel valued. This post I created impacted the women in our society as a lot of them believe in 'women supporting women'. Many of my friends reposted it and posted it on their story. 

This week, we decided to talk about Burnout, an important topic that many of us are unaware of. Burnout is a state of emotional and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. I designed a post about Burnout symptoms. These symptoms include fatigue, irritation, isolation, apathy and distraction. Before today, I didn't know Burnout was such a thing. After researching about it, I understood the feeling of tiredness and emotion exhaustion that comes from stress is known as 'Burnout'. This topic really needs to be brought up because I know how a lot of people might be going through this without them knowing. This will make people more aware of what they might be going through.

This week, our topic is self care. For that, I designed a swipe through instagram post about 5 tips on how to make your day better. These tips include going out for a quick walk, drinking a lot of water, reading a book, getting some sunlight and clearing your mind. By creating this post, I learned that it's always the smallest things that can make a great difference. Posting about this will help a lot of people, especially teenage girls who go through hard days. These are ways for them to have better days.