Spreading Awareness One Workshop at a Time
Partnering With UPREP Students to Build Eczema Care Kits
There are moments in advocacy that remind you why you keep saying yes, even when your energy is low, your skin is flaring, or your schedule is full. This workshop with the students of University Prep was one of those moments.
Image is blurred to protect the identity of the student, un-blurred is Darchelle Burnett, M.A. with white button up, black tank top, straight hair, and glasses in gold.
In the Spring of 2025, I had the honor of partnering with Anousha, a high school student who reached out with a vision: she wanted to educate her peers about atopic dermatitis (eczema) through creating care packages for people in the community living with the condition. As a patient herself, she understood firsthand that eczema is more than a skin condition, it’s a lived experience that impacts confidence, connection, and daily life.
With her leadership, we built an interactive workshop rooted in storytelling, empathy, and action.
Our Youth Can Advocate for Our Future
Advocacy doesn’t have an age requirement.
While awareness and outreach can be led by anyone in solidarity, I’ve come to believe that younger generations are some of our most powerful change-makers. Students who are just beginning to explore their identities, careers, and values are uniquely positioned to reshape how health, disability, and difference are understood in the world.
Anousha’s workshop took place during her school’s Social Justice Week, a series designed to help students reflect on societal issues and their role in shaping more inclusive communities. What stood out most was how engaged her peers were. Many students shared personal connections to eczema, asthma, allergies, or other chronic conditions, and the room quickly became a space of shared learning rather than surface-level awareness.
Why I Said Yes
During the workshop, I shared my journey as someone who was diagnosed with eczema as a baby and has lived with it moderately to severely my entire life. For many years, especially in my youth, I was encouraged to hide my skin, to stay quiet about the discomfort, the open wounds, the itching, and the emotional toll, out of fear that it would limit me socially, academically, or professionally.
What actually made life harder wasn’t my eczema.
… It was not talking about it.
Finding the National Eczema Association (NEA), connecting with other patients and caregivers, and eventually becoming an Outreach Ambassador changed everything for me. Advocacy helped me rebuild confidence, find community, and understand that eczema is a part of me, but it does not define me.
Saying yes to this workshop wasn’t just about educating students on eczema. It was about showing up as a visible example of someone who navigates multiple passions, advocacy, education, modeling, creativity, with a chronic condition.
Behind the Scenes: Building the Care Kits
At the heart of the workshop was a hands-on activity: assembling eczema care kits for others in the community.
Each kit was thoughtfully curated to include both education and comfort, featuring:
Informational brochures from the National Eczema Association
Creams provided by Anousha and her family (with clear disclaimers)
Inspirational messages handwritten by students
Mini SOS Sprays generously donated by Tower 28 Beauty
As students packed the boxes, conversations unfolded naturally, about skin, confidence, mental health, and kindness. It was a reminder that advocacy doesn’t always look like a podium or a protest. Sometimes it looks like sitting at a table, learning together, and building something with care.
Advocacy Leads to Many Places
My work with NEA has opened doors I never imagined, from sitting on patient advisory panels, to participating in a PCORI-funded research project focused on amplifying patient voices, to speaking in classrooms like this one.
Advocacy has also shown up in unexpected spaces: modeling with SMG to increase representation, consulting in DEI training to challenge assumptions about productivity and appearance, and creating art and storytelling that affirm identity.
All of it comes back to the same belief: when we learn to be kinder to ourselves, we create the capacity to be kinder to others.
Becoming the Representation I Needed
Leaving this workshop, I felt deeply hopeful.
Hopeful because there are young people who want to build more compassionate spaces. Hopeful because students are asking better questions. Hopeful because representation, whether through educators, creators, writers, or advocates, truly matters. It continues exemplifying things I worked towards when I had co-built the Monterey County Youth Conference: Race to Equity.
I didn’t grow up seeing people openly talk about eczema while thriving in the spaces I aspired to be in. Now, I hope I can be one of those examples for someone else.
Help Us Build the Next One
That workshop was just the beginning.
We would love to continue creating and donating eczema care kits for the upcoming workshops happening early March 2026. If you’re interested in supporting the next round of boxes, whether through product donations, financial contributions, or partnerships, your support helps expand education, comfort, and confidence for people living with eczema.
If you’d like to donate or get involved, please reach out through email at contact@doseofdarchelle.com, or instagram @doseofdarchelle or keep an eye out for upcoming opportunities to support future engagements.
Together, we can keep spreading awareness, one story, one box, and one conversation at a time.
