Huge Strides Forward, One Glance Back
The first month of 2021 is over, and the hEARt Team is wondering where the time went.
January was a crazy month - we celebrated the New Year (at home), witnessed political shifts (to put it lightly), watched our loved ones get vaccinated, got buried in snow, launched new semesters, and overall, started the year with a bang.
As we move forward, we’d like to take a moment to appreciate how far we’ve come.
At this time last year, the hEARt Listens @ UMich team was preparing for the launch of the Michigan hEARt Line. It was a milestone that we - Aria, Aastha, Sheily, and Swathi - had worked towards for two years. For two years, we conducted interviews, did research, attended workshops, developed pitches, and wrote grant applications, all because of a simple idea: the belief that students deserved easy access to peer support.
Over the last three years, we turned our idea into a thriving, passionate organization. We found the most caring students on campus and brought them together in pursuit of a common goal: offering an empathetic ear to students everywhere.
Things culminated in February 2020, when we finally launched the platform that would allow us to achieve that goal at the University of Michigan - the hEARt Line.
We had no idea how timely that launch was.
In a little over a month, the world was plunged into the pandemic, and students needed peer support more than ever. hEARt Listens was there for them. We are unbelievably proud of our Supporter community - our students were there for their peers in the most challenging time, offering words of encouragement, a helping hand, a listening ear.
And they have not stopped.
Since we launched, hEARt has had over 100 successful conversations with University of Michigan students. We’ve trained over 60 students in peer support skills, and reached out to every UMich student to inform them about our service. Outside of U of M, we’ve partnered with organizations like #Students_Against_COVID and AMSA-India to host workshops about health & well-being.
In short, we’ve come a long way - but we’re not done yet. Our mission is still to provide an empathetic ear to students everywhere, and we want to share that goal with you. Reach out; let’s work together to spread the power of peer support.