Student Stories Project
As part of our mission to ‘defeat depression one smoothie at a time’ Uzima has launched the Student Stories Project.
Our mission.
The purpose of the Student Stories Project is to bring more awareness to mental health within the college student community and to give college students a platform where they can openly share their journey with mental illness with others, without judgement.
Empowering college students to share their stories
The Student Stories Project is a campaign that offers a chance for college students at one of the participating colleges to be interviewed by Uzima and to have their portraits drawn in anime and posted in the store where other college students can view their art and read their interviews on our website. We believe as we continue to add college student portraits in our store it will encourage other college students to come forward and it will begin to empower the college student community in Pittsburgh to discuss mental health openly. We also believe it will help other students who struggle with mental illness to feel like they are not alone when they read stories about similar students with similar struggles. It is our goal that the walls of Uzima will contain hundreds of college portraits and will begin to remove the stigmas associated with mental illness, one smoothie at a time.
Bringing depression into the light.
We believe that once things can be brought into the light they then can be understood and ultimately defeated and as God says in the Bible, He promises beauty for ashes for His chosen people (Isaiah 61:3). The Chinese believe that before you can conquer a beast, you must first make it beautiful, and at Uzima we are helping people to begin looking at mental illness in a whole new light. Let’s continue to embrace mental illness in all its diversity and wonder. Once we take away the stigmas associated with mental illness then it no longer has power and that’s when we can defeat it.
Join us in defeating depression one smoothie at a time.
— Uzima