With over 150 clubs in DVHS, each and every one of them strives to help students find their passions and help them feel more comfortable at school by connecting them to others with similar interests or situations. However, it can be difficult for students with new ideas to create a space for their own club to fit in, but this year, there are several that have managed to do so. Some of these clubs include AIM Youth Ambassadors, the Alternate History Club, the DV3D Club and FemTruth Youth.
AIM Youth Ambassadors
As a club that strives to bring awareness and solutions to DVHS to help with mental health issues, AIM Youth Ambassadors is eager to make a change in the mental health space of our community.
When asked about their goals for this club, Founder and current DVHS sophomore Saisha Pal mentioned, “In this club, we aspire to combine product design and mental health to create accessible solutions for mental health in our community. We also hope to conduct research on what the current state of mental health is in the Bay Area specifically.”
This year, AIM Youth Ambassadors aims to develop functional mental health apps, host major mental health workshops, launch a mental health awareness campaign, and collaborate with other clubs and organizations to conduct research.
“There was some hesitation from faculty around how sensitive mental health topics are, and I had to find a way to approach these discussions without making anyone uncomfortable,” Pal explained. “Another challenge was getting students to recognize the club’s importance and overcome the misconception that mental health issues are only for anyone facing severe struggles.”
Additionally, Pal also describes the strong emphasis on physical health and neglect on mental health.
“For most of my life, I was told how important our physical health is.” Pal remarked. “Before I moved to California from Virginia and started at a new high school, nobody warned me about how important it would be to take care of my mental health. I faced the challenge head on, and now I realize how necessary it is to educate and raise awareness on mental health. This inspired me to start our club.”
The Alternate History Club
The Alternate History Club is inspired by a Youtube channel called the AlternateHistoryHub. This club explores the best parts of history and its what if possibilities.
Shourya Mallempalli, their founder and a junior at DVHS, stated: “Our biggest goal for the club is to educate people about history and think of alternate scenarios of history, which teaches the overarching goal of teaching people to see what could be the causes and consequences of each decision. For example, most students are going to be voters in this country and each student needs to analyze what will happen when they vote for a government official.”
With this in mind, the club introduced a new form of competition, combining structures and ideas from hackathons, speech and debate, and Model United Nations.
“By coming up with these event fundamentals, we drafted a competition format where students present a theory of an alternate reality of history to judges and the audience. Judges will judge by seeing and analyzing how a student presented and contextualized their theory to the given historical event,” Mallempalli further explained.
This new competition has resulted in a surge of student interest towards the club. With 62 student sign ups for the club already, the Alternate History Club has an exciting school year ahead of them.
“Right now our plan for the club is that we will first be teaching everyone in the meetings how to see and present alternate scenarios in history with students building presentations. We plan to do this with the intention of preparing students before our big competition in November, where students will present their viewpoints on a given topic,” Mallempalli stated. “Once it is semester two, the club has the intention of having a competition every month and we even plan to have inter-school competitions next year with other schools by starting alternate history clubs in those schools.”
DV3D
Being the school’s first club focused on building 3D projects, DV3D aspires to connect people with passion for 3D design.
Their founder and a junior at DVHS, Arya Gupta, explains, “I wanted to create a 3D design club, because I noticed that there wasn’t one already on campus and it is something that I have been passionate about for the past few years. I wanted to create a community at Dougherty where people with similar interests could collaborate.”
DV3D wants to teach members how to use Blender, a 3D software and to help them in building several projects which will further advance throughout the year.
When asked about the goals for her club, Gupta mentioned, “I want to put out multiple projects this year, collaborate with other clubs to create 3D renders for them, and allow students to continue to use the skills they learn this year to develop 3D assets and use them for film or games.”
FemTruth Youth
FemTruth Youth is a club focused on providing essential donations such as period products, reusable hot water bottles, eco-friendly detergent, and more to underserved communities as well as raising awareness on essential topics such as health, wellness, sustainability, and financial literacy.
Sravya Namburu, a junior at DV and the founder of the club, explained, “I got the idea to create this club after working with the official nonprofit for a year and realizing how much I learned. Before joining this club, I didn’t even know what a menstrual cup was.”
FemTruth Youth aspires to help as many people as possible by hosting several events throughout the year, such as the Green Kit Fundraiser, pop-up shop events, and booths at many major events such as the FOTA, the Art and Wind Festival and the Children’s Maker Market.
The Green Kit Fundraisers are events that raise money to make kits that are filled with sustainable and healthy period products and essentials like menstrual cups, reusable hot water bottles, eco-friendly detergent, laundry bags, and more. These kits can last girls in need up to ten years and cost approximately 100 dollars each for the club to make. Their pop-up shop events are a collaboration with small businesses in which FemTruth Youth sell the businesses’ products at fairs and events and donate all the proceeds toward these green kits.
“I was shocked to hear about the dangers of conventional, single-use period products that not only harmed our bodies, but also the environment,” Namburu recalls. “This is so important, especially with the current climate crisis and rising plastic pollution levels.”
Not only does FemTruth Youth focus on providing for the underprivileged, the club also focuses on how the products affect the environment.
“I realized if this were to be at a club at school, we would not only be able to help more girls but we would also educate the students at Dougherty Valley on sustainable products and period poverty as a whole, which is not emphasized.” Namburu stated.
