Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 8 (February 2010). Get Thinking: World Thinking Day by Casey (Cas* ) February 22 is World Thinking Day. World Thinking Day may not be well known, but if you have ever been in Girl Guides or Girl Scouts, you know what I'm talking about. For those of you who don't know, World Thinking Day is when different troops of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts gather together to work and learn as a community. World Thinking Day gives girls and young women around...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 8 (February 2010). Tragedy in Haiti Casey (Cas*) Haiti, the first independent nation in Latin America, still remains the poorest country in the western world. On January 12th, 2010, tragedy struck the island nation. At 4:52 p.m. local time Haiti was hit by an earthquake measuring 7.0Mw on the moment magnitude scale. The epicenter, 25km (16 miles) west of the capital and major port city Port-au-Prince, was near Léogâne. Although a 7.0Mw...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 7 (January 2010). 2010 Olympic Winter Games By Nat (Strider) The New Year is a time for setting goals and creating opportunities, whether they are about staying active, doing homework, or winning gold medals. It is a time for reaching potential, and striving to have fun along the way. The 2010 Olympic Winter Games is the perfect inspiration for doing something incredible in the New Year, and finding exciting activities to take part in...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 7 (January 2010). Art and Play Therapy By Maria (Gidig) Expressive therapy. Doesn’t that sound odd? But expressive therapies such as art and play therapy can be extremely helpful to anyone involved. We’ve heard of art and play therapy, but truly, what are they? Is it something that could benefit you? So many questions revolving around these! What is art therapy? Art therapy is a form of psychological help involving craft tools like chalk,...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 7 (January 2010). Alcoholism by Maria (Gidig) Alcoholism is a disease that can easily affect anyone and everyone, regardless if you’re the one drinking or not. How are we supposed to handle this along with the struggles of everyday life? Perhaps you or a loved one thinks you have a problem with drinking. You are not alone. Alcoholism is a more common problem than you think. It’s also known as alcohol dependency, and it really is just...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 7 (January 2010). How will you remember the 00s? (That's “two thousands'” or “oh oh zies”, if you like.) By Rob This year is a special one because it marks the start of a new decade, something that many of us have not seen before – or in the very least cannot remember much about. A lot of the time we hear elder people talking about what happened in a certain decade. The 70s brought us hippies, the 80s cheesy horror, the 90s pop bands,...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 7 (January 2010). Holocaust Memorial Day By Casey (Cas*) We see it even today, over sixty years later, in diaries, in newspaper articles, in memorials, and in novels. We see references to it in plays, in Broadway shows, in dances, and in songs. We talk to our grandparents and great-grandparents to hear their take on the situation happening at large in their own youth. Whether or not this terrifying situation, this Holocaust, as it is now...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 7 (January 2010). A Year in the Eyes of TeenHelp By Jessie (Asylum) The now-infamous “TeenHelp data loss” of December 2008 seems like ancient history to many of us. And to countless TeenHelp users it is something they have only heard about, mentioned in passing or found hidden on the TeenHelp History page, lost among happier landmarks, like reaching 5,000 members and new systems opening. But rewriting a decade of scripts and rules, rebuilding...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 6 (December 2009). The Holidays: From Creation to Commercialization By Katrina It's that time again! In 2009, the holidays are a time of waking up at wee hours of the morning to go shopped for loved ones, a time of resting from school or work and drinking eggnog or hot chocolate, a time of painting your nose red and dressing up like a reindeer to go door to door and collect donations for the Salvation Army, and a time of the sheer smiles...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 6 (December 2009). The Benefits of Yoga By Katrina and Maria (Gidig) Salutations, everyone! As we've all learned by this point in our lives, stress, especially that comes with the holidays, can be overbearing; one can nearly be attacked by the strength of stress at times. Around this time of year, our homes can be hectic with Great-Aunt Eleanor coming to stay for a week. We feel rushed to find the money for presents, food and other...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 6 (December 2009). How Do You Deal With the Changing Face of Bullies? by Sian Morgan This year, National Anti-Bullying week shines a spotlight on the fastest growing face of bullying: cyberbullying. Basically, this means using information and communication technology to deliberately upset someone else. It includes bullying via mobile phones, instant messaging, emails, blogs, Twitter, websites, chatrooms, message boards, Virtual...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 6 (December 2009). Activism Against AIDS by Stephanie (Konstantine) Each year, on the 1st December, World AIDS Day takes place. The aim of the day is to create a larger awareness of AIDS (Acquired immune deficiency syndrome) and the spread of the HIV infection which causes this, as well as attempting to raise money, tackle related prejudice and improve education upon the subject. It is traditional for the President of the United States to...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 6 (December 2009). Socialism by Casey (Cas*) Due to a misunderstanding of political parties and past events, there are currently a significant amount of negative opinions toward socialism. Many people wrongly relate socialism to National Socialism, commonly known as Nazism; although National Socialism might have had some socialist ideals, it is also mostly focused on race, socialist is not about race. By definition, socialism boils down to...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 6 (December 2009). Angel Tree by Katrina Twenty-seven years ago, Mary Kay Beard, who was on America's Most Wanted at the time and serving a 180-year sentence at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Alabama had a change of heart near Christmas time as she served her sentence. Outsiders would bring the inmates small soaps and toiletries, and rather than keeping these for personal use, many of the inmates wrapped them up as gifts for their...

Article featured in Avatar - Volume 3, Issue 5 (November 2009). Take Back the Night by Katrina November's Cause of the Month, Take Back the Night, got it's start in the late '70s as victims, but more importantly, survivors, of sexual abuse got together with their friends and family to raise awareness about the pressing issue. Earlier on (or 'In the beginning' or 'At its start'), the events focused mainly on different local unsafe areas and how to make them safer. Throughout the 70s,...