In pursuit of practical experience and a glimpse into the professional world, our Grade 9 student, Marcel, successfully completed his Work Experience Programme within our school's marketing department. Throughout his work week, Marcel had the opportunity to interview members of the Sunflower Club at BBIS.

Marcel: What is the Sunflower Club and what do you do?

Alexandra: The Sunflower stands for hidden disabilities and it’s a discrete way to show that you have a hidden disability without having to yell it out in public. Within the club, we try to make it a safe space for everybody. It is for educating, it is not just researching on the internet it’s also just learning within storytelling and just enjoying our time around each other, but then externally we try and educate our school community as we have already done with multiple grade levels and then that also comes with promotion of the club with inclusivity and making sure everybody feels safe in here and able to be themselves.

Marcel: What inspired you to create the club?

Alexandra: Interestingly enough, last year there was a student who was a really good friend of mine and she knew that I was struggling with my mental health a lot and that it had to do with my hidden disabilities and the fact that I couldn’t be myself around my entire grade basically and so she thought why not start a club, were we can help everybody feel that included and that did positively impact my mental health.

Marcel: What is your favourite part of working with other students?

Alexandra: I would definitively say it’s just a positive experience to be able to share who we really are and then not have to what we call mask or pretend that we don’t have our hidden disabilities. Us being able to open up and see everybody's real personalities.

Marcel: What do you plan on doing with the club in the future?

Alexandra: In the future, I plan to still help educate and I want to go around the world and make speeches about this topic and help people, maybe even go to the medical field and help that way as well with mental health.

Adi: Within the school what we are planning to do is to first of all continue having the environment of having a club which is a safe space for people with hidden disabilities, but we are allowing other people to speak about their experiences and to make sure that they are not alone, but what we also want to continue what we have done for the past two years of educating different people around the school, especially about different ways where they can be a lot more understanding.

Marcel: What activities did you do with the club this school year?

Alexandra: Our main activities were, having presentations and not just lecturing kids but having different activities and simulations.

Adi: This was to show kids how it is to have dyslexia or ADHD, we would show the kids this through interactive presentations.

Alexandra: It is not supposed to be a lecture for the kids but more so they understand how it is to have hidden disabilities and what problems may come with them.

Marcel: How do the members feel about the club?

Derin: It is fun, and I feel like when people hear the word club, they think of something very serious and I feel like that will scare people a little which is why I did not join until this year, but it is very chill and it feels like a safe space, which I think is a very good thing.

Marcel: What about the club inspires you?

Anna: I liked when we were connecting to like the 6th and 7th Graders and seeing them be excited and like that is cool and interesting information and them being interested as well as being engaged with us.

Marcel: How has your experience with the club been so far?

Adi: I just think the best part about the club is that it just ended up bringing people who are either understanding of the struggles of having hidden disabilities or those people who do have hidden disabilities together and then creating a community to speak about things that you might be struggling with to other people who understand that.

The Sunflower Club is a club that talks about hidden disabilities. Hidden disabilities are not visible for us and that is why this club exists. The club educates the students of our school to look out for those with hidden disabilities and to be respectful to those. This interview was a great opportunity to learn more about the Sunflower Club and we encourage more people to learn about the topic of hidden disabilities.