I write poetry as a way for my mind to communicate with itself. Poetry to me is a gift, a voice, a drive, and a passion that is either present or absent in my life. Poetry has helped me during my battle with PTSD. Writing my struggle with PTSD down has given me the confidence
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We love our Shona Community! It’s full of incredible, powerful and authentic women. Every now and again, we have girls and women reach out to us with some advice about an experience they have overcome. They share their stories so you don’t feel alone. Today, Natalia wanted to share her experience with love, finding it
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Going to secondary school is very exciting – there is a new building, uniform, new friends, teachers and lots of opportunities to try new subjects and activities. But it can also be a bit daunting, even to those who aren’t heading into first year. This year it’s even more confusing, after months off and new
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Ah, heartbreak. If Monday’s could be a feeling, we think this would be it. Whether you finally plucked up enough courage to tell them you liked them, like really like like them, and were shot down with the “I just want to be friends“. Or, you’ve been together for years, have your whole summer mapped
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Women are fiery, strong, compassionate, resilient and beautiful creatures. And yet we live in a world that doesn’t celebrate these things as much as it should. Media celebrates a very narrow definition of beauty, one that doesn’t last because time passes, and we grow up and grow old. Gravity hits and traumas, scars and stretch
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Do you ever find yourself in a funk or a mood and have no idea how to get out of it? Well, we have asked our Shona Ambassador and health psychology expert Orna Murray to talk about how movement can unlock way more energy and help you to feel more positive and open. Body &
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Hey, welcome back. In our last post, we talked about confidence (you can check it out HERE). As confidence usually involves taking a bit of a risk, which can sound dangerous and scary, we want to chat about it a little more. When you look up the word “Risk” in the dictionary, it usually mentions
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I have never struggled with a piece of writing more than this one. I have opened and closed this word document what feels like 100 times in the last few weeks, trying to find the right words. The document is saved as “pride month”, and I think the reason that I am struggling to
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In a weird way, I was lucky to have had a little bit of a different leaving cert experience than most others have. I say “in a weird way” because it wasn’t exactly lucky that I was depressed during my leaving cert. However, it did allow me to have a very different perspective on the
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Anxiety. It’s often a feeling that people put down as occasional nervousness, maybe before a big exam, or before a big event. But what some people don’t know, is this ‘feeling’ can overtake your whole mind and body, and leave you feeling that you’re on the brink of breaking down 24/7. That’s what happened to
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We love nothing more than a good movie! And especially those that hit us right in our feels. The movie doesn’t necessarily have to be sad, just something that hits you emotionally, something you can relate to, or something that makes you think about your role in the world differently. Whether those feelings are good,
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If you’re a Hunger Games fan, you’ll already know Amandla Stenberg. She played the adorable Rue and was awarded a Teen Choice award for her performance. Amandla has been acting since the age of 12 and has been an activist for almost as long. Her journey to becoming a true role model for us all
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This name may ring a bell as Megan Rapino is a professional soccer player who captains the United States, national team. She holds the title of The Best FIFA Women’s play from 2019 and helped her team win gold at the 2020 London Summer Olympics, 2015 Fifa Women’s World Cup, and 2019 FIFA Women’s World
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We don’t know when or how it happened, it kinda snuck upon us. Life used to be about living wild and free, pursuing freedom, happiness, love and contentment. Now it’s pretty much all about pursuing those likes. Did you ever hear the saying, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it
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We live in a world where people value the quantity and not the quality of people in your life. The social media world tells us that we need to rate ourselves and each other based on the number of followers or the number of likes we get. THIS IS WRONG. One good friend is worth 100 bad ones (or
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Having time off from school is usually amazing! But this year we’ve missed out on so much, we’re thirsty for new opportunities to meet new people, try new things, and celebrate who we are as young women. How about you? For the second year, The Shona Project is offering the girls of Waterford an inspirational
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Standing up at the top of a class, looking down onto all of your classmates, or eyeballing them over Zoom can be daunting. For many of us, those butterflies in your belly decide to have a dance party, your mouth gets dry and your heart starts racing. Yep, we’ve all been there. Public speaking of
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With the amazing announcements from both Lidl and Careplus Pharmacy recently, in their bids to try and help end period poverty, we thought it would be fitting to share some weird and wacky facts about periods with you. Because as weird and all as our periods are, hold on to your knickers because things are
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