Growing up in a world increasingly characterized by excessive stress, worry and anxiety, the importance of mental health for adolescents has quickly taken center stage. When Nadia Ghaffari attended Yale University for a global program this summer, she made friends with teenagers from all around the world who shared their own experiences with mental health.
As a sophomore at Los Altos High School in California, Ghaffari founded TeenzTalk.org, a global community where teenagers could share their stories, inspire each other and embrace the lessons that stem from challenging experiences. Teenagers around the world tend to struggle with the same stress-inducing elements; the process of high school can certainly be a taxing one filled with standardized tests, grades and college applications. TeenzTalk aims to harness the power of peer-to-peer connections to help teenagers share their aspirations and encourage one another to overcome their common setbacks. Ghaffari and her team of students from around the world –– many of whom are Yale Young Global Scholar alumni –– drive the organization forward by recording and posting videos of teenagers sharing their own stories of combating personal issues such as bullying and anxiety, as well as sharing their own strategies for reliving stress. Video communication has proven to be especially powerful for the organization in a rising age of the media because it not only allows teenagers to hear a guiding voice, but also to see the face that goes along with it.
The organization's blog also contains articles and posts by young students around the world sharing their passions and discussing issues that are important to them, thereby inspiring others to do the same. TeenzTalk ultimately aspires to promote a forum where students can support each other and unify their strengths, curiosity and compassion to achieve happiness and well-being.
"As I interview teens from diverse backgrounds and experiences, I am truly touched by the unique fire and enthusiasm behind their ambitions. Despite a variety of obstacles, they all have a desire to grow; their combined strengths are truly unstoppable. Peer influence can be used to create positive social change, and working on this global initiative has truly been eye-opening and life-changing for me," said Ghaffari.
Ghaffari and the TeenzTalk team's mission could not arise at a better time; alarming research in the past five years has found that teenagers are significantly more stressed than adults: 31 percent of teens report feeling overwhelmed as a result of stress, 30 percent say that they feel sad or depressed as a result of stress and 36 percent report feeling tired or fatigued because of stress. The American Psychological Association found that teens are at risk of a variety of physical and emotional ills and potentially shorter lifespans than their elders if they don't act to reject their current trajectory. While many psychologists currently believe that model adult behavior and the influence of elders is the most effective way of reducing teenage stress, TeenzTalk focuses on development and improvement of teenage minds through positive peer-to-peer influence.
While the term "peer pressure" has most commonly been used to refer to the negative influences that teens can have upon one another, peer influence, or positive peer pressure, can be a primary contributor to adolescent success. Contrary to younger children who tend to esteem their parents' teachings and strive for their praise, adolescents value autonomy and crave acceptance among their peers. By providing core material of video responses by teenagers, for teenagers, TeenzTalk sets aside the generation gap and embraces peer connections as the source of strength. As the organization's motto states: "together we inspire growth."
TeenzTalk is currently in the process of putting together a large-scale Mental Health Campaign to open discussion on mental health and address stigmas surrounding the issue; it has also partnered with organizations such as the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), Bring Change 2 Mind, Sutcliffe DBP and The Mighty to to share valuable resources with their growing community. To stay updated with their campaigns, resources, videos and blog posts, like the organization on Facebook and visit the website at TeenzTalk.org.
