Teen Action Fair 2022: Re-Imagine

Hosted Saturday, May 14, 2022
10:30 to 11:30 a.m. PT

Post-show Conversation
via Instagram at @discovergates

We celebrated change at this year’s Virtual Teen Action Fair ! The Teen Action Fair is a space to convene and collaborate with organizations to make a difference on a local and global scale. Attendees had the opportunity to engage in fun activities, participate in Q & A sessions with changemakers, and experience performances from today's youth leaders. This year’s theme was “Re-imagine” and topics focused on youth mental health, racial equality, and climate change.

Missed the Event? Watch Now

Speakers included:

Keynote Speaker: Thandiwe Abdullah
Poet: Bitaniya Giday
Music: Totem Star musician Mirabai Kukathas featuring her new album, How to Make Purple & KEXP Youth DJ: Ruby Red

Partner Organizations

KEXP DJ Ruby Red through the 90. Teen music program which teaches youth about the art of music curation and radio.
Mindful Exchanges an outreach branch of the primary student mental health club at Yale University. Mindful Exchanges is centered around communicating and learning about youth mental health through outreach, and fun & engaging seminars.
Rainier Beach Action Coalition (RBAC) a grassroots, Black-led organization committed to locally-driven development. RBAC is community-centered, focused on promoting quality education, living wage jobs, affordable transportation, housing, and more.
TeenTix a space for youth-centered around accessibility to art, and aiding youth in the barriers that arise in their efforts to access it.
The Environmental Science Center a non-profit organization that promotes environmental stewardship and academic achievement through-science based education.
Totem Star supports a diverse group of young recording artists through mentorship and meaningful relationships.

Learn about Youth IN Action

Thandiwe Abdullah was featured in Seventeen Magazine as Leading the Next Generation of the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Seattle-area youth created this guide to connect teens to multicultural mental health care according to the Seattle Times.

Teens Take Action, a highlight from Parent Map.com highlighting youth who are fostering positive change around them.

Ways to get involved:

Below are some organizations dedicated to mental health, racial justice, and climate change. Learn more about how you can take action:

YOMHE-Youth Organizers of Mental Health Education is a group of Seattle-based youth of color tackling the subjects of suicide prevention and mental health.

Crisis Connections is the oldest crisis line in the nation that connects people in physical, emotional, and financial crisis to services that will be of help to those in need.

InclusionX works on the inclusion of people with disabilities in mental health services, adolescent reproductive health, and inclusive computing and arts education.

Duwamish Valley Youth Corps Program was created to mitigate the problems faced in the community by students of color, undocumented students, non-native English speakers, and immigrants, particularly from low-income schools and households.

Africatown Community Land Trust was formed to acquire, steward, and develop land assets that are necessary for the Black/African diaspora community to grow and thrive in place in the Central District as well as support other individuals and organizations in the retention and development of land.

Meet our Presenters

Keynote Speaker: Thandiwe Abdullah

Thandiwe Abdullah is an 18-year-old organizer with Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Youth Vanguard, and Mobilizations Director at March for Our Lives. They helped to conceptualize and launch the Black Lives Matter in Schools campaign, adopted by the National Education Association. Their work is to create safe spaces for black youth to organize around racism and anti-blackness, particularly in schools.

Poet: Bitaniya Giday

Writer and activist Bitaniya Giday is a first-generation Ethiopian American who was named Youth Poet Laureate by Seattle Arts & Lectures in June 2020. As a youth ambassador with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center and as cofounder of Eastside 4 Black Lives, a grassroots organization of BIPOC youths working to bring accountability and equitable action to the Eastside, Giday has already gained much experience in organizing impactful community activities and initiatives.

www.facebook.com/eastside4blacklives

KEXP Youth DJ: Ruby Red

DJ Ruby Red was born and raised in the southend of Seattle and currently goes to Rainier Beach High School. At a young age she was introduced to artists, musicians, and activists working to foster creative leadership in the community’s young people. She was able to explore realms of her personal identity through youth programming in the Seattle area and has been impacted by organizations like AGE UP, Rain City Rock Camp, and Youth In Focus. For Ruby, access to arts education was vital to who she is as an artist today and believes music, and art forms like it, go hand in hand with community organizing and social justice work. Ruby passionately pursues filmmaking, graphic design, and journalism while also building her skills in community organizing and leadership. Music is what drives Ruby’s creativity and her knowledge of music spans across many genres. She will happily sip tea to jazz, cry to folk, or rock out to grunge. Catch her on the wrong day and she’s crying to jazz, sipping tea to grunge, and rocking out to folk. It really depends. P.S. if you need to learn how to solve a Rubik's cube or make an origami anything she is your person.

Musician: Mirabai Kukathas

Mirabai is a storyteller. A playwright, spirited conversationalist, and (maybe most importantly) a singer/songwriter, she loves nothing more than telling an absurd story with an honest emotional core. The songs of this genre bending “floral folk goddess” are characterized by vulnerable lyrics, walls of harmonium collaboration with community, and a unique blend of irony and sincerity. Her plays and songs are absurd and funny and often a little sad, as are all things created by Mirabai. She was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, although she also grew up in her mother’s native Malaysia. She’s garnered such honors as the Robert Bloch Award for Music, placing at MoPop’s SoundOff, being named one of the Gates Foundation’s 100 Local Changemakers, winning the Young Playwrights Project (twice), and being chosen for the Seattle Opera’s Creation Lab. Mirabai’s art is an act of healing; a confusing celebration of her culture, identity, and life. With lots of love, effort, and community, she works to create her own unique sound to tell her own unique story. She is currently a freshman studying music at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.