In the summer of 2019, I got the chance of participating in the Delhi chapter of Young Leaders for Active Citizenship High School Achievers Programme. It was through the aforementioned programme that I was blessed with the opportunity of interning with Youth Ki Awaaz.
I had beforehand assumed that the internship would be an insightful experience but had at no point thought it would serve as an epiphany. I remember meeting 2 members of the team who specifically emphasised on how they wanted to see teenage perspective and teen problems in content.
I was apprehensive even to a certain point stunned that people were interested in reading and hearing about the musings of GenZ because till that point, I had always thought that my opinions didn’t really hold any weight in the world and that there were bigger problems existing than teen issues.
Youth Ki Awaaz truly taught me about the importance of the voice of the youth. Thus I was inspired to start my own youth portal called GenZone which exclusively aims to bring forth the opinions of teenagers regarding various topics such as culture, politics, sports. It also has a section known as Teen Zone which aims to cover issues, experiences faced by teenagers through candid writing while at the same time destigmatising these issues.
I would really appreciate it if you help support my mission of promoting and destigmatising teen thought by checking out the website and following GenZone’s Instagram account. We are a very new website (launched on December 10, 2019), so your support will mean a lot.
If you fall between the age of 13-19 or know someone who does) and have/has an opinion (or even a rant) about a particular subject or an experience you/they want to share I hope you will consider publishing it on GenZone (for more details you can check out the Write For Us section of the website).
I would like to end by thanking Youth Ki Awaaz for teaching me and countless others about the importance of our voices.