It had been barely an hour since I got back home from a tiring day at school when I sat at my stickered midnight blue laptop for another session in the HundrED Youth Ambassador Programme.
The last time I was here was a year ago. I was an ambassador exposed to a whole new world of people just like me in some ways but completely foreign in others.
But like Jasmine sang in 'Aladdin', I also found some fantastic points of view in this new world and learnt so much more than I ever anticipated.
This time I'm in the Youth Committee, so I'm one of the people who's encouraging other people to go out there (on Discord and Zoom) and interact with others so that they too can get a hold of some of those fresh perspectives.
Communication, inclusion and intercultural understanding are topics that are frequently explored
Considering that the participants of this YAP, such as myself, have incredibly diverse backgrounds, communication, inclusion and intercultural understanding are topics that are frequently explored at the HundrED Youth Ambassador Programme because they help youth changemakers collaborate with peers across the globe, understand different perspectives, and solve global problems together.
Take the two insightful sessions we participated in during our second week into this year's Spring Cohort.
The first session was led by fellow Youth Committee members Neev, Arkana, Lavanya and Aryaa and focused on the importance of communication skills and intercultural dialogue in global collaboration. During the session, we discussed how language barriers and cultural differences can sometimes create misunderstandings when working in international teams. Building upon these discussions, the facilitators shared simple yet effective strategies to overcome these challenges, such as active listening, using clear and simple language, and being mindful of tone and body language. All of these are skills that could help each of us communicate more effectively with peers from different backgrounds and build stronger, more inclusive collaborations.
These ideas felt especially relevant to me since they were coming from people just like me. It showed me that although even small differences in language or communication styles can lead to misunderstandings, learning to navigate them allows us to collaborate more effectively and avoid miscommunication.
These ideas felt especially relevant to me since they were coming from people just like me.
And while the first session focused on communication across cultures, the second session introduced an initiative that promotes inclusion in STEM education: Girls Go STEM, an innovation with the goal of equipping more girls with the skills they need to pursue careers in STEM.
The initiative, led by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), provides students with access to a free online learning platform offering interactive courses on topics such as digital skills, sustainability, and entrepreneurship. Through these courses, participants are introduced to concepts like the circular economy and are encouraged to develop practical solutions to real-world challenges. By making these learning opportunities accessible to young people across different countries, the programme aims to reduce the gender gap in STEM and empower more girls to pursue careers in these fields.
Girls Go STEM showed me how inclusion in STEM is defined not just through representation, but that it is also about giving young people across backgrounds uniform access to opportunities that allow them to give back to society and contribute to global innovation and development, which I think resonates strongly with what I do through my own initiatives.
Through The Petri Dish, where I aim to make biotechnology and science innovations more accessible to a wider audience, I focus on communicating complex scientific ideas in ways that make them engaging for all, and these sessions have helped me improve on my skills by gaining useful insights from my peers.
These insights are also helpful for my other project, The Ballerina Project India. This initiative aims to promote awareness and diversity within ballet to make it more inclusive for everyone, so it is important that I communicate openly with my audience. This is something I learnt through trial and error, but these sessions have helped me better understand how I can use intentional and inclusive communication to strengthen the impact of my initiative.
Being part of such a diverse community of Youth Ambassadors and Youth Committee Members while also being able to participate in sessions hosted by fellow YCs and YAs and experts in social impact, such as these two sessions, has helped me learn that meaningful change rarely happens in isolation but through collaboration with open dialogue and willingness to understand and learn about perspectives that are not always similar to our own, because that's when we are exposed to ideas, opportunities and ways of thinking that allow us to create a more inclusive and innovative future.
Aanyaa Garatikar is a 14-year-old MYP 5 student from Mumbai, India, and the co-founder of the Ballerina Project India—an online community working to make ballet more inclusive and accessible for everyone. She also run a blog called The Petri Dish, where she breaks down complex biotech topics to make them easier to understand and inspire more people to engage with innovation. Outside of this, she loves reading, drawing, singing, and learning German.
