Youth Infusion empowers youth voices, supports teen mental health through service learning

‍For the latest in our series on organizations that inspire us to take action to build a stronger democracy, Democracy Group community manager Jessie Nguyen caught up with Youth Infusion Co-Founder and Executive Director Elika Almeida.

Youth Infusion is a nonprofit organization that provides service-learning programming for young people in Northeastern Pennsylvania. One of its programs, Youth Talks, is a youth-led podcast program that amplifies young voices.

What inspired you to create Youth Infusion and Youth Talks?

Elika: We had problems facing young people before the pandemic and when we went through that whole ordeal, we found that young people are struggling a lot with mental health challenges. So a lot of our programming revolves around not only service learning and connecting young people to their communities through mentorship and peer-to-peer connection, but we also provide teen mental health and first aid training.

Now is the time for adults to really connect and be mentors to young people. They need us; they lack the resources to really have a full connection and social interaction with the world. What we do is provide them with the tools, skills and resources and that connection to adult task force mentors so that they have the set of tools they need after graduation to not feel lost in life.

How are you supporting young people and addressing these challenges through your programs?

Elika: We’re giving the students who are involved the platform to elevate their voices — they’re promoting awareness of topics they feel are important in their communities and their schools and Youth Talks is an avenue for them to do that.

We’re also getting a lot of momentum and a lot of interest in the podcast curriculum for teachers and students because it can be done anywhere. What we do is we bring in the equipment and sponsor the school that wants a pod room — they just have to give us a small space so that we can work with their young people and guide them through what it takes to produce a podcast episode.

Youth Talks: Internet Anonymity and the Negative Impact of Social Media on Teens

This eight-minute episode is created by high school students from Delaware Valley High School through their podcast club sponsored by Youth Infusion. The hosts discuss the intersection of mental health and social media and the looming danger of internet anonymity on teens. Give it a listen!

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