ELI Student Leadership team member, Irving, playing drums during the World Happiness Day event.
World Happiness Day is an annual celebration on March 20 developed by the United Nations (UN) to promote happiness and well-being around the world. This Winter 2024 term, the ELI Student Leadership Team created an event to share happiness with the Renison community.
The small-but-mighty team of 10 students from the Bridge to Academic Success in English (BASE) and English for Academic Success (EFAS) programs met bi-weekly from January to March to develop creative ways to share happiness with their peers. Together, they discussed what happiness means to them – laughter, family, friends, shopping, food.
After brainstorming their ideas, the team broke out into small groups to develop their activities. Two groups focused on “Happiness Challenges” to encourage participants to do something to make themselves or someone else happy! Some of the challenges included sending a kind text message to a friend or telling a funny joke. Other challenges included dancing with Reni Moose and holding a smile for 20 seconds or longer. Participants who completed these challenges were awarded with a custom-made pin, or a ticket for free ice cream sundaes!
Another group promoted happiness by asking participants to share one of life’s simple pleasures on their Happiness Board. Dozens of participants stopped by to share their favourite things, like a fresh cup of coffee in the morning, singing in the car, and dancing to guilty pleasure songs. This board will stay up in the Atrium during the exam period to continue sharing some happy thoughts with students as they study or pass by on their way to class.
As a cherry on top of the free ice cream sundaes, the ELI Student Leadership Team worked with Renison’s Chaplain, Scott McLeod to allow students to explore their musical creativity with drums, a bass, guitar, and piano set-up for anyone to play! The atrium was a whirlwind of happiness and kindness on March 20 with an energy that could not be ignored!
As the ELI Student Leadership Team closed their term on April 3, participants were encouraged to share some of their highlights from the term.
One student shared, “The activities, opportunities and freedom to show everyone’s ideas were great. The teamwork and support of peer leaders made us feel comfortable and excited about the activity.”
Another stated that they liked that the team “does not have limitations on imagination,” speaking to the sky’s-the-limit approach of the leadership team.
ELI Peer Leader Wallis Zeng truly did a tremendous job leading and supporting the ELI Leadership team this term. She instilled a sense of independence and confidence in the student leaders while helping them develop their teamwork and communication skills.
We hope that World Happiness Day remains an ELI Student Leadership Team staple, and we can’t wait to see what next term’s team has in store!