By Mia Madlambayan, Research Assistant and Salome Vuki, Prevention Specialist, Maolek Na Lina’la (MNL)/Life is Good
Amidst the Holiday season, Maolek Na Lina’la (MNL) or “Life is Good,” pushed to organize multiple events for Guam’s youth while spreading the philosophy of a “good life” using the Positive Action curriculum.
MNL closed out a cohort with one of St. Paul Catholic School’s health classes where the participants completed multiple projects that sparked their creativity and sense of self through creating collages, taking photos, and writing a newsletter. MNL also continued their classes with its newly offered Positive Life Academy, an after-school program that doubles as service-learning hours for the Guam Department of Education’s (GDOE) schools. MNL was also invited to work with the Guam Football Association (GFA) and provided a prevention training to the participants from one of their youth sports programs. The youth had the opportunity to learn about self-concept, positive and negative Thoughts-Actions-Feelings (TAF) Circles, and harmful substances and how they affect our bodies. MNL ended the year with the Guam Police Department’s (GPD) Project U Christmas break program. This eight-day initiative served 15 high school and middle school youth from various schools. MNL prepared the students by emphasizing the importance of abstaining from substance use and focusing on achieving short-term goals that they can accomplish in the new year and long-term goals that they can achieve throughout their lives.
With 2021 concluded, MNL reflects on our accomplishments and the challenges that we have overcome to improve our quality of services. As 2022 begins, MNL has high hopes for how we can continue to serve Guam’s youth and wishes everyone a Happy New Year!
