Jana Vyrastekova

We gave them some questions to discuss around the tables.

And additionally, we made small groups, very random groups, so the people could not select with whom they are in the group.

And we gave them small challenges, like cook something next week, which is orange, and give us a picture of that.

Or, you know, go for a walk and...

take a couple of shots of your group and let us know how it was.

And we hoped, but we were not sure that scaffolding these social interactions would work, and it actually did work.

One of the things that was very important is that we actually gave students tasks to do together to give them a reason to be together.

It's as simple as it can be.

That's what we need as human beings, just having an opportunity to connect with others.

And we hoped that by making it very obvious that this is an environment to make new friends, we'll actually make people more relaxed about, I am here to make friends.

And it worked.

So when we then later talked to students, we also conducted some interviews and we had some open questions in our questionnaires.

This is one of the things that came...

most often as a reason why they believed the program worked for them, which was, I knew that I am in an environment where everybody is there for the same reason, to connect with others.

So I was very relaxed and it was a very nice environment to connect with others.

We found this aspect very important.

Often when we speak about mental health, loneliness of students or any other young people in general, there is some kind of negative connotation to it as if there is something to repair.

While being lonely is a normal thing in life, it happens.

And what we tried to add in this context is this opposite reformulation of the situation.

Okay, so now at this moment, you are not feeling that you have enough social contact.