What is your group project about, and what made you want to create your project?
Our group project is about bringing awareness to mental health through a summit. My team and I wanted to create this project because we wanted to help people in person. We felt it would be more effective to have a summit and have actual people attend rather than just reaching out through something like social media or a website.
What skills did you gain or develop as a teen leader, and how did you apply those skills to lead your project?
The skills that I gained as a team leader were communication and outreach. I had good communication skills before this, but working with my group, my school, and my teachers to help make this event come together gave me experience as a widespread communicator in addition to working with my peers. I also gained the skill of outreach through social media by making Instagram posts.
What challenges did you encounter while working on your project, and how did you overcome them?
The challenge we encountered was finding a location, which we overcame by communicating with my school and working with my supervisor to hold the event at my school. Another challenge was getting people to attend, which we tried to overcome by posting posters all over our schools and through social media. However, I think we didn’t start early enough, which made it harder to let people know about the event and resulted in fewer people attending.
Tell us how the TLP supported your goals as a teen leader and what your next steps are after completing this TLP year.
The TLP supported my goals as a team leader by giving me this opportunity to have this event, because without TLP, this isn’t something that I would’ve done on my own. The supervisors also helped support my goals because Ms. Alysha attended our event, and they gave great suggestions on how to improve outreach. My next steps after completing TLP this year are to reapply for next year and to hopefully continue volunteering through the summer.
Describe a time when you felt proud of yourself as a teen leader.
I felt really proud of myself as a team leader when the event was going on because I could see how all of our hard work had accumulated to this point and how it paid off.
Do you have someone who inspires you?
My brother inspires me because he’s a hard worker, really good at communicating his feelings, and cares a lot about others.
Imagine you’re giving a TED Talk about a leadership lesson you learned. What’s the title, and what is your main takeaway message?
The title of my TED talk is “Prepare ahead of time.” My main takeaway message is that when you are part of a leadership group and are planning an event, it’s better to come up with what you want to do as soon as possible so that you can plan everything and prepare everything well before the deadline.
