We recently connected with Aahana Paul And Celine Bono and have shared our conversation below.

Aahana Paul and, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

My friend Celine and I were on FaceTime during quarantine and were talking a both how we felt that there were not enough educational resources for youth, especially because we were barred from going to school because of COVID. We both felt passionate about educating youth about important issues in society that were being ignored or neglected being taught. This was when Celine suggested we could do an educational podcast so we could help with this issue, and the podcast was born from then. We launched a website, podcast, and resources all during our 8th grade year of middle school. From there, we collaborated with other organizations and eventually registered as a nonprofit.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We host a podcast where we discuss important societal issues such as gun violence, political divisiveness, and current news updates. Alongside this, we run a non profit organization where we work to bring educational resources to underprivileged communities. We put a strong emphasis on supplying factual information regarding issues that are often covered in a biased way in media or simply not discussed enough in public education settings. We are most proud of hosting a gun violence prevention workshop at our very own high school, which was an incredibly transformative experience for us since we not only learned a lot about the prevalence of gun violence and how society can best approach this issue, but we were also able to work closely with Colorado Ceasefire. We are so grateful for all of these wonderful opportunities, and to the listeners and supporters we have acquired in the process.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

We faced multiple obstacles in the process of developing our non profit, and one of the most notable ones was becoming a non profit. A lot of difficulties stem from endeavoring to understand processes that require multiple tedious or complex steps. For us, it took hours of watching YouTube videos and looking at tutorials to finally enter into the process of becoming a non profit. It wasn’t easy for us to approach this new change when it felt like there were so many small technicalities and caveats to this process we had to consider, but when we finally began the process it all simplified itself over time. We would suggest persevering, asking for help whenever necessary, and utilizing resources provided by people who have already undergone the same experience.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When we started out our podcast, we placed more emphasis on being the educators. We did more research and in depth analysis, but we didn’t really attempt to garner any external opinions. However, multiple years into the process we began to reach out to organizations like Colorado Ceasefire, where we were connected to knowledgeable members with personal experiences . This really broadened our horizons and allowed us to receive opinions and factual information from a number of different sources. It really opened our eyes to how widespread and prevalent these issues we discuss are, and added a more personal element to the whole process.

Contact Info:

• Website: We are-youth.org
• Instagram: @weare_youthorg
• Facebook: @weare_youthorg
• Linkedin: @weare_youthorg
• Twitter: @weare_youthorg
• Youtube: @weare_youthorg
• Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1eT572roEWjLNX7OvqucFd?si=qhzB7QtdRrCAcaJ3oQ3vTA