October is the annual BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH! For the past few years, I personally think that the events have been too performative and not informative enough. This year, I got the opportunity to organize the events myself. In order to make the activities more interactive, we organized a voting box activity, in which students read a statement and answer true or false based on their prior knowledge. The overview of the panels is shown in the diagram below designed by me, where the white lines represent the gray panels, the pink represents the statement + voting box, and the red represents the routes. The other photo is the actual voting box used on the day.

 

The week after the voting box activity, we had a presentation about breast cancer. The biggest challenge here was to find ways to keep students engaged. Therefore, along with Britney, I wrote the script and decided to start the presentation with a real-life event about a 70-year-old grandma almost missing the optimal treatment period due to stigma, which describes how stereotypes a major barrier for people to get checked for breast cancer.

Last but not least, we are also planning on publishing Instagram posts that break down essential information about breast cancer. Using Canva, I was in charge of creating the visuals. I think the real challenge here is how to best accommodate the posts for the general audience. For instance, shown below are four different cover pages for breast cancer FAQs. The challenge was that a supposedly normal picture can be interpreted wrongly by not yet matured underclassmen. The adjustment of the photos has proven to have a big impact on how the overall graphic turns out. For instance, a person’s feedback told me how the bottom left design has a color that makes the cover look more pornographic. However, without using a photo, the top right one somehow looked empty.

Attached below is an example of a final product for an Instagram post, which can be potentially turned into a pamphlet or a tri-fold. Something worth-noting is on pages 8 and 9. Without Canva Pro, a lot of images are not free for use. Therefore, I decided to try making my own graphic for self-examination. I did so by cropping a cartoon of a woman and adding circles and shades.

part 1: everything you should know by Zonta Club

Reflection.

During this process, I learned the importance of collaboration. For instance, the juniors who are keen in designing came up with the posters designed for the voting box activity as well as making the voting boxes themselves. On the other hand, as the leaders of the club, Britney and I took charge of writing the script and allocating jobs among members–including explaining instructions at BIG Time Classrooms and giving presentations.