YOUTH INSIGHTS
Youth insights is a non-profit, youth-led organization that aims to provide youth with information and advice on different careers in an interactive format through virtual events so that they make well-informed decisions for future studies and goals. They also hope to link youth with others who have similar interests as them.
TEEN CHAPTER
The Teen Chapter focuses on featuring various teen startups, youth-led organizations, teen entrepreneurs and highlighting them and highlighting the work they do and the positive impact they create on our society. So, we are very happy to have youth insights with us in this conversation and we are looking forward to knowing more about the organization.
So, let us begin!
Q1) How did you come up with the idea of youth insights?
Ans: We (Joel and Kylie) came up with this concept earlier this year when we were both in grade 11. Both of us were in the stage of planning our future and weren’t exactly sure what direction to go in ourselves. Then we had a thought that if we were going through this, there could be a lot of other students out there who might be facing similar situations. So, we wanted to address that on a larger scale. As the career selection process isn’t taught to us, we wanted to do that and bridge the gap between the professionals and students.
Q2) What kinds of opportunities do you exactly provide to the youth?
Ans: We arrange virtual events/panels for different career options and converse with the appropriate professionals in that field so that they can share their journey and experiences with the youth and clarify their doubts. We also conduct fundraisers for the less-privileged, where you can learn to socialize and communicate better with new people. One can also join our team where you’ll learn teamwork and maintain discipline and social harmony.
Q3) What are some of the struggles/ challenges you’ve faced in the initial stages of your organization?
Ans: One of the biggest struggles was to find the right people to join our team. It was just the two of us in the beginning. We had no experience of managing the organization at a larger level, we just had some of our ideas that we wanted to share with the youth. So, the setting up of the various teams and finding the right people was something that we had to do with full determination and a lot of research.
Q4) What are your roles in this organization? Also, tell us something about yourselves. (Hobbies, education, accomplishments, etc.)
Ans: Both of us being the co-founders of the organization manage all the directors, coordinators and we mostly communicate with various organizations and heads of the management team, where we organize/plan the current/upcoming events. Now about us, we both are seniors at the Burnaby North Secondary School in British Columbia, Canada. I (Kylie), personally love sports such as swimming, skating, snowboarding whereas Joel likes art and stuff and she reads books in her free time.
Q6) What kind of impact would you like to create on our society?
Ans: Honestly, any kind of impact is amazing and we are inspired when the people who join our events express their appreciation or tell us that the event was able to help them in any way or in terms of understanding what they want to do in the future. Or just in general, providing them insight on a specific career and so we would like to keep creating that kind of positive, social impact on youth anywhere whether it is in terms of education or just even being a member of our team.
Q7) How did you create such a strong social media base?
Ans: So in the beginning when we first started the organization, Joel and I had to create posts and we had to interact with other organizations to help us promote our posts and our events. But now we would have to say a big thank you to our marketing team who now promote our posts and they do interact with our followers and different organizations. Our graphic design team is where they create our posts and make them very beautiful and eye-catching. That helps us promote the promoting process.
Q8) What motivates you to run the organization and do such amazing work?
Ans: Like I previously mentioned, seeing the impact that is created on the youth is a key motivation and we want to build genuine connections between youth and industry professionals as well as all the students that are involved in this. So being able to accomplish this is definitely what motivates us and I think that in general that kind of bridging the gap where we’re able to connect people worldwide as well. So we started just between our communities in British Columbia, Canada but we had the goal of expanding to a global audience and so that’s why we wanted to take that opportunity. Even now speaking with you guys, we are in very different places but just being able to create that kind of connection with youth everywhere and all over the globe is a key motivator.
Q9) What are some of the topics that you are interested in doing in the future?
Ans: We are thinking of doing music or healthcare in the future and then from there we’ll also ask our audience and our social media base what career they want insight in and learn more about it.
Q10) How are you able to get renowned guest speakers?
Ans: Well, it can be quite a long process sometimes and we do have to dig, but for the most part we kind of rely on using social media especially LinkedIn to connect with renowned professionals. Sometimes we even ask if any of our team members know anyone personally. Every industry professional that we have invited to youth insights was truly appreciative of all the effort for wanting to inspire youth with the information.
Q11) Would you like to give our viewers any advice in terms of career?
Ans: Actually, both of us feel like we are not in a position where we are qualified to give any advice because we are also students and we are also trying to find our direction for our future, but you can find advice on our blog page on our website where there are many articles you can read about the career opportunities we have discussed and all the events we have done.
Q12) Let our viewers know if you have any open positions at youth insights.
Ans: Yes, we do have multiple positions that are open for joining our team right now. Recently, we just released our final round of executive positions, and if p, people are interested in that they can learn more about it on our Instagram page and no interviews are required for that.
That is the end of the interaction with Youth Insights
THANK YOU
Teen Chapter
Written by: Dnyanada Sagare
Edited by: Manaswini Mantha