Week 3: Research Projects for Future Webinars

This week, my main focus was a research project surrounding mindfulness. I researched experts who presented on and worked with mindfulness, specifically surrounding grief. My hope for this project is to create a webinar for those who were impacted by a mass tragedy and have one of the experts I found give a presentation and talk about what it means to be more mindful during daily activities. I also found different mindfulness/meditation clinics in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey who have performed classes on or near 9/11 in order to help and honor those impacted by this tragedy. My hope is to organize with the VOICES Center for Resilience a free mindfulness and meditation class, whether via zoom or in person,  that allows those deeply impacted by this tragedy to take a break and refocus on themselves during this hard time, while also remembering the impact that 9/11 had on them. I think this would be extremely helpful and would hopefully turn into an annual event for the victim’s families, survivors, and responders of 9/11. I think many people do not fully understand the power of practicing mindfulness, so it is really important to educate those who could greatly benefit from practicing it. Many of the people that attend the VOICES webinars or events have either experienced or had a family member experiences a mass act of violence and it is extremely hard to deal with this experience on their own. Through these webinars or events that can be organized with the VOICES team and mindfulness experts we can greatly help this community understand and better handle their experience and teach them that they are not alone. I also researched the impact that Biden releasing some of the sanctions put in place on Iran affects the 9/11 lawsuit against the country. Although there were no articles at this time that specifically talked about how the lifting of these sanctions will affect the lawsuit and the families involved in the lawsuit, I was able to better understand the situation and the relationship these two events have with each other. By next week I am sure that I will have more information on this relationship, as not many people are aware of this lawsuit.