Women are constantly under pressure to be beautiful. Movies, magazines and television all feature nothing short of perfection, which leaves a lot of stress on women in their daily lives.

One group of women is trying to bring the women of Grand Valley State University together to realize their true inner beauty through a new series of discussions called the Raw Beauty Initiative.

The event was organized as a women’s ministry program by mission leaders with University Christian Outreach, a religious organization on campus. Clare Holmes, one of the mission leaders, said they began the initiative because they wanted to bring women into a safe place to connect with each other and to create a healthy environment for them.

Holmes said that though they are religiously affiliated, the conversation is not a sermon and attendees did not have to be religious to attend.

“Beauty is something that every woman is touched by and struggles with,” she said. “It’s not stuck to one idea.”

At their flagship event on Saturday, the event drew about 30 attendees. Many of them were part of UCO, but others were completely new. The members of UCO provided brunch for everyone to start off the morning and to get comfortable before the discussion started.

The conversation centered around defining beauty and what it means to be beautiful, which was followed by a video from Christina Parrilla, a Grand Rapids-based makeup artist. Parrilla said that since she works so much with makeup, she sees firsthand the dramatic effect that wearing it or taking it off can have on women, so she made a video that exposed the negative things that women hear regarding makeup.

“I don’t think (people) notice what that does to a girl or woman when you say things like that, it kinda sticks with you,” Parrilla said. “I think that we can use makeup as a tool to enhance our natural beauty, not as something to cake on and hide our imperfections, because no one’s perfect.”

Another guest speaker was Annie Sullivan, an alumna of GVSU and UCO, who spoke about her personal journey of finding security in herself and her inner beauty throughout her life.

The event ended with an exercise for the attendees to practice vulnerability with each other. The two-part exercise began with discussion prompts, and then the women, who were photographed at the beginning of the event, were asked to pick a photo of someone they do not know and write affirmations on it.

“We’re striving to create a culture of love, healing and vulnerability through seeking, finding and creating beauty,” said Rachel Pepmeyer, a mission leader.

“The aim is to have this exercise leave the girls feeling positive and joyful and uplifted about their beauty,” Pepmeyer said.

Each of the monthly meetings will focus on a different aspect of beauty, whether it is breaking down ideas surrounding beauty or talking about the emotions surrounding beauty. The meetings are not required and attendees can drop in as they want.

The next Raw Beauty Initiative event will be held on Nov. 14. For more information about the Raw Beauty Initiative and University Christian Outreach, visit www.facebook.com/rawbeautyinitiative.