My journey with Youth Ki Awaaz started in 2010 when I was attending an inter-school event. During the awards ceremony of this event, I had the opportunity to hear Anshul Tewari talk about YKA and what was his motivation to start this platform. Once I reached home, I looked it up on Facebook and started following it. What made me stick to following YKA so closely was the fact that it was and still is one of those platforms which makes sure that every voice is heard.
It was only in 2017 when I wrote my first article on YKA sharing my experience of an internship where I was cheated by the company I was working with. Once I wrote the article, I felt a sense of relief, something you feel after you vent out your feelings. A few months after this, I wrote another article talking about the Food Bloggers and Influencers are causing food wastage just to click instagrammable pictures.
Being a food blogger myself, I have always been appalled by the kind of food wastage we cause in our daily lives and seeing my peers do the same for a few thousand likes on Instagram made me even angrier. This is how I became a regular writer on YKA, voicing my opinions wherever I felt it was necessary.
Last year, during YKA’s Writers’ Meet, I had the opportunity to interact with the team, which helped me understand the concept and the ideology of YKA better, right after which I ended up voicing my opinion about Arnab Goswami and his journalism in an open letter to him. This received a huge response from the YKA readers, which I was not expecting at all. Then again, a few months later while working with another organisation, I had the opportunity to closely work with Anshul and the team at Youth Ki Awaaz on the topic of Sustainable Development and Climate Crisis and what role we as the youth play in it.
While I have only written only 12 posts on YKA till now, 13 if you count this one too, the reason why I like YKA is that it helps me understand what others in my age group are thinking and what they feel about a particular issue. I really like the dedication the entire team has to bring forward stories and voices, which otherwise would go unheard.
I started my journey as a food blogger in 2011, and it is because of this platform that I have been able to shape myself as an all-round writer and gain the confidence to write about topics other than food and travel, write about topics that matter and have the power to change lives.
Youth Ki Awaaz will always hold a special place in my life and will always be my go-to platform for voicing my opinions about various issues.