Changing The World Starts With Changing Yourself
by Ieva Tilindyte, European Social Entrepreneurship and Innovative Studies Institute
If you want to change the world, you need to be brave and start with yourself. How? Just think about what you could do in order to make yourself feel better. Maybe by doing this, you can help others to feel better too? See, it is a very simple formula of how to start changing the world. Of course, we have an example showing how to adapt this formula in real life situations — we would like to introduce Dominyka Šabajevaitė and tell you her story.
When Dominyka was just a child, she started having obesity problems. It all began when she was just 9 years old and by the time it got more complicated. As you can imagine, a child who is a little bit different from others is likely to be more noticeable… in a negative way. Of course, her parents were concerned about this health issue and tried to deal with it by motivating a young girl to attend street dance lessons, aerobics so she could spend her free time more actively. But these options were not as helpful as expected and while trying to look for any other possible options, they realized — there is no professional help for children like Dominyka. So it was a time to make radical changes just by their own.
First of all, they’ve started to change their lifestyle, including free time activities and eating habits. After a year and a half first results were obvious: Dominyka eventually got rid of all additional kilograms but she was not the only person who succeeded — her father Artiomas, who was also having the same problems, not only lost some weight but also got inspired seeing such positive changes. He became interested in healthy lifestyle and was aware of this situation when children with this health issue can’t get an appropriate help. And it was that time when an idea of “Teenshapers” was born.
So Artiomas, together with Dominyka, have developed and finally realized the idea of “Teenshapers” program, which is concentrated on weight control. This program suggests consultations with nutritionist, psychologist, physiotherapist and other specialists who can improve the mental and physical health of a child. All needed information about how to start and change your habits is provided, but it also requires maximum devotion to purposefully reach your goal.
Even more, “Teenshapers” is organizing teen-shaping camps — these camps are a part of weight controlling program: as Artiomas says, children get surprised when they finally find out that losing weight is not so scary task at all. They do enjoy spending active time with others and overcome new challenges. Dominyka is also organizing and participating in every camp to help and encourage children — truly, she is a living example of how to be stubborn and brave in order to achieve your goal.
This young girl also has a great advice for everyone out there — “The only important thing is to be brave and believe in yourself, no matter how hard it could get sometimes”. So, what now stops you from doing what’s best for you and the rest of the world? Be sure — every change is important.
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The story is now available on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/doit-europe/changing-the-world-starts-with-changing-yourself
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p.s. Do you know a child from 6 to 16 years who has developed a social innovation using maker facilities? Maybe you are working on a project with kids or you know a committed person in a makerspace? Contact us, if you want to share your own story! → https://www.facebook.com/DOIT.Europe.Net/
“Entrepreneurial skills for young social innovators in an open digital world DOIT Europe” project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement №770063
CC BY 4.0 DOIT, http://DOIT-Europe.Net, H2020–770063
