Teens Discuss

It is a platform designed to help bring teenagers together  to discuss,learn, have a voice on global issues as well as come together to collaborate and provide solutions.

The organisation addresses issues like self discovery, self esteem,self worth, passion, purpose as well as talking about depression, teenage struggles,and also sharing opportunities for schooling, inventions, advocacy and growth.

To achieve this, we have a podcast channel where we invite guest speakers who we have an interactive session with talking about a relevant topic concerning teenagers and also getting to know about what they do and the initiatives, opinions, inventions they have.

Our podcast channel gives teenagers the ability not only to talk about issues that concern them but also give them a chance to present their ideology, opinions and resolutions.

Our YouTube channel is designed to get views of teenagers from various realities, backgrounds, countries and status on trending issues affecting teenagers from topics as simple as assignments in schools to mental and sexual health. With our videos, everyone one is included and every teenager gets to view their own realities and know more about others.

 we have also designed a Discord server where discussions take place, our mentors counsel teenagers on various challenges both openly and privately based on each preference. With this we create a bond for collaboration, networking and learning and a family that understands.

The specific problem we are trying to solve is the lack of "Effective Communication, connection and collaboration" between teenagers of nowadays. We often claim we are fighting for global issues but we are doing little to no action towards making a change.And when we asked some teenagers why havent started doing anything,Most responses we got was that,they didnt have a community of like minded teenagers they could discuss or collaborate with.They felt they couldn't do it alone.

This problem has become very common,it became worse with the intervention of "Covid" which drifted teenagers more farther away from each other. 

This issue is mostly affecting teenagers, why?,because we have become so accustomed to being in our own little world whether it be in playing games or just listening to music.We have lost touch with the real world and we need to revive that if we wish to solve global challenges. 

The factors that are contributing to this problem is the lack of a community that accommodates teenagers with different views on life.Recently,we put out a survey and realised that more that 50% of the teenagers that responded agreed with this.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r...

Continuing to grow like this will lead to little to no changemakers in the near future,We teenagers are the next leaders but we dont even know how to communicate effectively or collaborate with our pairs to find solutions to global issues.We need to start building it now so we can grow to be confident adults and effective communicators in future. 

The teenage years has been a time where teenagers all over the world go through a lot, have a lot of opportunities offered and also create a lot of things not to talk of a wide range of emotions that are gone through every single day.

Some teenagers go through this stage just fine while many are just lost wanting a platform that can accept their difference without bias. So, we asked a question " What if there was a platform where teenagers can talk about global issues and can have each other as a support system?" That was how Teens Discuss was born.This platform develops connections like never before. Also,teenagers that get featured on these videos are as normal as any other and these conversations help in boosting self esteem, awareness, confidence in front of camera but most importantly gives them a place to voice out their emotions, opinions and make their voice heard.

Teens Discuss was founded by teenagers who have had some enlightening about life, and got to experience a world beyond their locality through the connections they have with people across the globe which was facilitated by applications for opportunities. 

The organization;being founded by teenagers has given us a chance to experience the problem to which we created the solution,which actually makes a great deal of research on its own.But nevertheless, we still went  on researching about the problem, what could be done,we interviewed teenagers, asked them what they wanted ,and we have gone through communities filled with teenagers and we realized that what most of them wanted was this "sense of belonging",a safe space for them to talk about their hidden talents,their unique ideas without judgement and with people that truly understand."they just wanted to be recognized "

This sentence was like the overall answer that most teenagers gave and which resonates with us as teenagers .

After the entire process of researching,we tried to find out organizations that actually help with this but we could hardly find one that really gives a safe space to teenagers ,so we were like "Why cant we found one".

We live in a world with little to no connection between people especially teenagers which leads to lack of effective communication which is not a good thing for this generation. 
We need to be able to meet with people from all over, develop a connection,discuss boldly about topics which would build the skills of public speaking that the world needs today.
It is important because we need to start training the next leaders on how to effectively communicate, collaborate with others,bring ideas out of a discussion and be able to use their voice for a change.
I believe this project works to contribute to more than one problem the world is facing as we have teenagers with different ideas relating to different problems .So,I believe the best group to fit our organization in should be "Partnership for the goals" as we are trying to build this sense of partnership amongst teenagers. 

We chose the "Pilot Stage"as it was the best stage that best resonates with where we are as an organization now.We couldn't call it a concept because it had been a concept during 2020 in which we had the idea and were researching about it and what exactly to do,how to do it and our target audience. And,it also couldn't be prototype because it had been a prototype during the first months of 2021 where we were testing our solutions, hearing feedbacks from testers and what we could do to improve it.

The best stage to call our solution is the Pilot stage because we already passed the concept and prototype stage and we are currently rolling out services in two or more online communities. We started with a community of teenagers I already have (as an individual)as friends through a program I was a part of ;The Rise scholarship program. These people have been the ones mostly using our services as of now including individuals from other online communities before we grew out more to impact more lives. The number of people we estimated to have experienced our services is 25.

Our solution is applying the use of an existing technology in a new way and we totally rely on technology to function.The main technology we are using is "The phone and laptop" although we also need the use of several others like;an external microphone, a camera ,the zoom app,a podcast app among so many others.But without a laptop,none of this will strive as it is needed to carry out our video sessions,our podcast sessions ,our interview sessions among so many others. 

To explain further,our services depend on every type of technology that aids video or audio communication as our solution is based on communication between people from around the globe.

Currently, our solution serves 25+ teenagers within the months in which we started which was a big achievements to us.These people include those who have participated in our zoom sessions, podcast sessions, challenges and events. In the next year ,we hope to serve more teenagers as we plan to pass the pilot stage and move on to the "Growth Stage" in which we would have an established product and service.We are estimating to serve more than a hundred teenagers next year.Yes!,that would be done through the commitment we possess as a group of teenage changemakers ready to make a change. 

To add on to what we have just written,the reason our numbers are not really certain is because our service is a type of service that helps people directly and indirectly. We have a YouTube page where we publish our videos, and we dont know the amount of people who have been impacted by that or through our inspirational posts on our social media pages.Which is why we can't really give a correct estimate of people impacted.The ones given above are for those who we can count that have participated in our podcasts and zoom sessions. 

1)Pass the pilot stage and move on to the growth stage;Which means we want to become established and reach out to more individuals around the world .Also, if possible move on to the scale stage.

2)Roll out more podcast and zoom sessions:This is one of the main services the organization provides,we need to ensure that more teenagers are able to participate in our events and solve one of the major problems that brought us into starting this project in the first place.

3)Start the ambassadorship program;This is a program we have in mind to broaden our view and impact more people,this is a program in which we have ambassadors from different countries that will be operating based on their specific countries. For example, we have "Teens Discuss global "as the main organization, but then we will be having sub countries like "Teens Discuss Egypt "or Teens Discuss India" where these ambassadors will represent their country and create online or offline discussions for teenagers in their communities. 

4)Creating our app:Although this seems like a long term goal,anything can be achieved through commitment and consistency, which is why we hope to create our app even if it's just in the testing stage.Our app will be a community app that brings together teenagers from all over to have conversations either through chatting, video conferencing or podcast.This app will also share opportunities related to teenagers and also give teenagers a chance to post about their innovations or projects. It's like a community for teens.

With the website, we will be using Google Analytics to measure our user interaction, preference, retention rate and actions taken. With this, we will be able to know those who we made direct impacts on, what to improve in our products, what our target audience likes and other actions that could be added.

Also, moving forward we would create weekly surveys in a Yes and No question format which will be super easy to take as we can ask questions more comfortably and get our users to respond genuinely. It would be anonymous.

In addition, we will ask our users to tell us about their experience, what they learnt from every one of our products and how it has helped in their personal life moving forward.

We will also entertain reviews about the user's experience and what can be improved just to make sure we are delivering the best impact to every teenager.

1)Mentorship:Although we are run entirely by teenagers, we need an adult or Mentor who is going to be there mentoring the team members what to do,how to run it.Yes,we might be teenagers and know what to do in regards to the solutions as we are teenagers ourselves but we also need a mentoring session with experts and experienced adults who will teach us how to go about it,what mistakes can be made when starting a project and how to avoid it.Knowlege is power!

2)Growth development;We currently lack promotion in order to reach more of our target audience, we need access to partner organizations and featuring in top organizations websites or social media pages in order to give us the visibility we need to expand our audience and grow our impact. 

3)Funding:This is currently a big barrier for us as an upcoming project,we need  funding to update our zoom subscription status,keep our website running,register our organization, build our app and even for buying the technology we need in carrying out this sevice. Funding is a big barrier we have.

Our team members include teenagers that are well diverse and talented in a one or two skills .Our team members include teenagers and young adults who are passionate about making a change in the society .We are well positioned to deliver this solution because first of all,we are teenagers ourselves,and who can understand a problem better than those who experience it.And also,we are unique and have different skill set which is the reason we have different roles in the team.We have the hosts ,which includes team members that are able to conduct sesions,have great communication skills and friendly;able to meet and talk to new people. We also have content editors or managers who help with what we post and how we edit it to look good.We also have tech advisors who help in anything related to the technology we are going to be using.We also also have the roles of those who find out opportunities we can help put out there to better help our audience.

Our team is also diverse,we have team members from Egypt,Nigeria,Mexico etc to give this welcoming space to our Audience. What makes us really unique, is that we are In charge of roles which resonates with what our talents and skills are which makes us better able to carry out tasks.

We are currently  partnering with three organizations whose goals resonates with ours.

One of them is "Spotlights club ";this is a youth org of 150+ individuals from 16 nations who  seek to question what they see and understand the intricate realities we face, in order to transform the world into a better place, one step at a time.

The second is "Youth Trend organization";aimed at helping youths in various ways possible. They provide Articles that educate, programs that enlightens, scholarship opportunities and other opportunities mainly from other organization among others.

Then the third is "Rainbowzim";an organization   for those who wanna showcase their gifts , showcase their talents , and prove to the world that they are more than what it sees.

We chose to partner with these three because we have similar goals and how we partner with them is that,we often host programs or events together.

Teens Discuss is founded by girls and mostly ran by powerful girls who want to create a change in the society.

 Also,our Organisation qualifies for this because Through Teens Discuss, there is application of the human right;Freedom of speech. Human right is one of the core principles of the HP girls save the world prize. 

This platform will ensure teens are aware that they should be able to use their voice confidently.

To further add,why we are eligible for the HP girls Save the world prize is because,through our discussions,we will be having a session for girls to discuss ideas on solutions to climate change. It is within our goals for this year.This will be addressing the issue of sustainability. 

The HP girls save the world prize will be of great help to us as an organization as it would help to advance our work in the aspect of getting the technology we need to communicate,i.e The laptops.

And also,we would be able to implement the idea of a  solution we get from the discussion we have regarding climate change.

 This opportunity would be one of a kind to us.

Our team is qualified for this prize because this program is designed to improve the quality of life for women and girls and this organization is founded by teenage girls who believe changemaking can come from anywhere and anyone. 

Also,our Organisation qualifies for this because through Teens Discuss, young girls can build a strong ideology and have the right self-image. Although Teens Discuss cannot empower all girls, (SDG 5's official wording is "achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls") it is a great platform that is giving and will be giving girls more confidence and the strength they need in society. 

The pozen social innovation prize will help a lot in developing our program and making it very standard. It will also help us in getting the technology we need in facilitating the discussions.