Insights from Network’s Young Ambassadors – Wellbeing

In June, we had two of our young residents, Aaliyah and Aneeqa from London, become new Young Ambassadors.

As Young ambassadors, they’ll get involved in decision-making and represent the young people who live in our communities. They’ll get to develop their ideas on how to improve their neighbourhoods and give young people living in them a voice especially when it comes to services that affect them.

So many young people have insightful views especially on topical issues that can affect everyone, but sometimes we don’t get to hear them. So, one of the first key changes our Young Ambassador have set out to do is get their voice heard. To do this, we’ve launched ‘Insights from Network’s Young Ambassadors’ which will be bi-monthly blogs by our Young Ambassadors about societal issues from the eyes of our young residents. We kick-start the series with our first topical issue around wellbeing and the importance of taking care of yourself. Read what Aneeqa has to say about it and look out for more insights from them.

Wellbeing and taking care of yourself

by Aneeqa Gruber, Young Ambassador

To begin with, I would like to remind all you beautiful readers out there today that: Life is beautiful and you have time. Deeply breathe in the serenity that surrounds you. You deserve to. This along with many other self-worth mantras are ones that I deeply stand for.

Aneeqa Gruber, Young Ambassador

I believe often there are times we forget to stay in awareness with ourselves. We too often let the hustle and bustle of everyday life sweep us away as if we were a speck of dust on a dirty kitchen floor. Let me ask you, when was the last time you truly took a deep breath in and did something for you without letting your mind drift into the abyss of worries to do with tomorrow or yesterday?

My name is Aneeqa Gruber and I currently live in West Hendon with my mum. I notice myself becoming so deeply involved in the worries and ambiguities that come along with being a 17 year old student studying A Levels that I was also victim to forgetting the most important thing in my life, my own self-love.

Covid-19, along with many others, was a difficult time for me in terms of my mental health. My self-worth and value massively deteriorated and I felt myself too often slipping into the negative spiral of anxiety and panic. One day, after watching an incredible Ted Talk on the importance of self-love, it caused the consequential revelation of how limitless a persons power is when they realise their potentiality in this world. And therefore, I decided to make a change. To change that negative spiral to a positive ladder.

Truly, I believe that once you start bettering yourself and focussing on yourself, good things will immediately follow. You’ll start to realise your worth and the consequential positive impact each person can have in this world, not only in your own life but in helping to pour that into others too. How did I achieve this you might ask?

Well that took me a very long while to figure out but through personal growth, you begin to delve deeper into the truth of your soul, into what truly inspires you. I stopped denying myself what I could do, and decided that if I could metaphorically grasp it, I could do it. This is why I’m here today.

My personal growth, meant for me, doing things that I never thought a person like me could achieve. I began working on myself and finding things that coincide with self-love. Finding hobbies such as: yoga, mediation, gardening and running which in turn help quiet my mind when the spiral becomes negative again. Quieting the mind and allowing you to place your hand on your heart and with honest words, being able to truly say ‘I love you’ to it. Giving thanks to each beat which allows you to live another moment on this blessed earth. To seize another opportunity and to give thanks to those people who fill your soul with value and love. Through these elements of calm, I began to discover what truly inspired me. One of which was my home.

I have always had a deep love for my community. A place in which I took my first steps in, met my first friends, played innocently in the parks until I no longer played, met the people whom today I am proud to call family and truly a place I am proud to call home. This is why it deeply saddens me that the beauty which it contains becomes so hidden by the recklessness of many of us whom forget the importance of looking after it.

Today, in fact, on my daily run, I found myself running past Brent Cross, my local shopping centre, and in which I know so well, one could call it my ‘second home’, where I saw the dirt and accumulation of trolleys into the river. It made me question, why. Why do people forget that the recklessness that you have with your planet, with your home, benefits nobody?

Therefore, when the opportunity arose that I had the ability to make a change through the Network Homes Young Ambassadors application it was an opportunity I could not miss out on. Not only in matters to do with sustainability through helping create a better home for my local community, in supporting them and helping it grow into a place it truly deserves to be, but on other matters which I feel need a higher platform of awareness, such as the importance of mental health and compassion to yourself and others.

I was ecstatic that finally I have a place that I can raise awareness of how key it is to take a deep, long, belly breath and find out what you truly stand for, and maybe just maybe, help another person like me, make a change for the better.

So in regards to this introduction of me...I am so proud and pleased to be here writing this to you today in hopes that my articles will inspire you to become the best version of yourself in all matter, in order to make the world a better place. Whose stopping you?

Want to become a Young Ambassador?

If you or someone in your household is aged 16 to 26 and would like to join Aneeqa and Aaliyah as a Young Ambassador, get in touch with our Resident Engagement Team to find out more information. You can contact them at get-involved@networkhomes.org.uk or complete our online Get involved form and they get in touch with you.