Project Report
| Jun 24, 2025
Strengthening Mental Health for Minorities
By Ajer Qureshi | Program Manager
At Pointters, we are dedicated to the support and well being of minority individuals throughout the Fox Valley community, which includes the strengthening and improvement of the mental health of minority individuals who may be struggling in their households for a variety of reasons.
We believe that good mental health is a key step in improving livelihoods. To that end, we have been enlisting friends and community members in our mental health programs and have even partnered with other organizations to support and continue our mental health improvement initiatives.
Our HERS Group combined with the SFP Program, reaches out to women and children of minority communities to help them discuss their various struggles and provide advice on improving their livelihoods through mental health exercises and strengthening family bonds. In addition to the HERS Group that meets regularly at our main office, we have also brought SFP and youth mental health workshops to families in local homeless shelters thanks to our friends at Pillars.
Our biggest ambition yet is a youth-centered Summer wellness program known as YELP (Youth Empowerment Leadership Program) where for eight weeks, we lead youth individuals through workshops dedicated to various themes of self improvement, including mental health and self-confidence. This is our most ambitious program yet, we're excited to see where it takes us!
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Feb 26, 2025
Supporting Youth Mental Health
By Ajer Qureshi | Program Manager
For many youths attending high school and approaching the years towards adulthood, things are getting stressful for them. Stress in turn can often lead students to become anxious, which affects their grades, which affects their chances for graduation. It's especially worse for those in minority communities, who often have to tackle their academics along with the stresses of struggles back in their household. PCI recognizes these struggles and have been committed to providing a solution for mental health support among youths.
One of our biggest initiatives towards youth mental health is our Youth Mental Health Counceling Program, which provides youths and their families with free virtual access to licensed counselors and therapists available to provide support without the strain of logistics or financial limitations. We at PCI find that connecting youths directly to professional therapists and councilors provides the most immediate and effective way of providing mental health support.
In addition, we run a Youth Mental Health Workshop for youths that visit PCI with their parent/guardian that attends our HERS Group. This Youth Mental Health Workshop allows students to engage in a hands-on activity, like an arts-and-craft project or an entertaining game. This provides youths with an engagin activity to relieve stress and to connect to their inner selfs. We try to instill values of family togetherness and self-confidence through these workshops.
There are plenty more ways to provide for our youths, and we continue to build more programs and methods to connect to our youths and help them through their timultuos times.
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Oct 30, 2024
Keeping COVID-19 Support Active
By Ajer Qureshi | Program Manager
The COVID Pandemic that affected the nation has thankfully been subsided in the past few years, but the threat of COVID still remains. This remains true for many minority individuals who have trouble accessing clean resources and vaccinations to protect against the COVID virus. Fortunately, we as an organization, along with the support of our partners, have had many successful opportunities to run free vaccination clinics that also serve to provide minorities with access to free resources and information on how to get support for their struggles.
As of late, the need for full direct access to COVID vaccines is dwindling, as more and more of our community are being successfully vacinated. The main concern now is to ensure that individuals of our community that got vaccinated continue to get their booster shots at the appropriate moments. This involves making sure to direct individuals to free and locally available clinics and pharmacies across the Fox Valley Region. We have made a considerable effort to include this information in our handouts, with the numbers and addresses to locally available pharmacies and clinics handed to minority individuals throughout our many other events.
For the people that PCI directly work with, we ensure that they have access to the resources that they need. This includes asking if they are in need of a COVID vaccine, and if they do, we help them to sign up for a COVID vaccine at a local clinic or pharmacy. While the demand for COVID vaccines has reduced, we still want to ensure that people are still prepared and protected against COVID.
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