We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aadya Pandey a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Aadya, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?
When I began the Youth Equity Project, a youth-led, national, award-winning organization focused on mental healthcare awareness and access, with my co-founder, Vandana, we immediately connected over our own experiences regarding mental health awareness and cultural stigma. By launching this initiative, I knew that the task of “de-stigmatizing” mental health is by no means one that should be taken lightly. And, yet, it is still something I wished to pursue. Our passion for bringing out the voices of those who are structurally cheated by our society when it comes to mental health was strong and I know it is the driving factor in why we won’t stop until we fully accomplish our goal. The legacy we hope to uphold is to help youth accept and receive the care they deserve for their mental health. There are so many barriers faced by youth in our society — and that’s outside of just cost and transportation. There are also cultural barriers, familial barriers, and so many more underdressed aspects related to lacking mental healthcare. As an organization, we want to make efforts to expand this care through our community leaders and initiatives across the country.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Of course! My name is Aadya Pandey and I am a junior at Eden Prairie High School. I have always been exceptionally passionate about community involvement, especially with our adult leaders. Whether it be within our school districts, city councils, or even state governments, I believe that youth and student voices are very underrepresented, especially for issues that directly effect them. One of these issues is mental health legislation. After I came to terms with my own mental health journey, it was evidently clear to me that there are so many things in our society that needed re-shaping in regards to youth mental healthcare, and I knew I wanted to take the initiative. With my co-founder, Vandana, who shared the same vision, we began the organization in hopes of tackling this issue. Through meetings with state representatives and senators as well as collaborating with school boards and committees, we have made significant strides in calling attention to some changes we hoped to see through our own experiences. We have testified for bills and initiated enactment amongst these community leaders including, but not limited to, recognition and training regarding 504 plans, expansion of mental health screening, and more.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
When the thought of beginning a nonprofit struck my co=founder and I’s head, I had absolutely no proper experience with business management or leadership. It seemed almost impossible that we would be able to begin a registered, certified, nonprofit considering we had absolutely no clue what the process of beginning one looked like. Vandana and I would meet for hours using Google and YouTube to figure out what we had to do to actually get started. It was difficult and at times, we had to take a blind shot in the air and hope we were going in the right direction. I had definitely underestimated the complexity of what it takes when beginning a nonprofit, it is definitely not an easy task and it made me appreciate all other business owners out there so much more.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Something I learned very quickly while running an organization as a high schooler was the difficulty of balancing your work with everything else in your life. I initially struggled to find a the medium between prioritizing my school work while also doing so much for the organization. After several instances of trial and error, I realized that beginning an initiative like this requires contemplating so many factors outside of the actual business itself. I am finally in tact with my responsibilities with the nonprofit as well as my schoolwork and my advice to other youth who wish to take strong initiatives like this is to make sure you are truly passionate about what you are choosing to do, because if you are not, it can be difficult to put in the effort required for a big initiative like this. If I didn’t care for addressing mental health stigma as much as I did, the initiative could’ve easily died out because there was no passion.
Contact Info:
- Website: youthequityproject.org
- Instagram: youthequityproject_
- Linkedin: Youth Equity Project