Hi! My name is Akshaya and I am a mental health activist who also advocates Gender Equality, Quality Education, Body Positivity, Women's Empowerment and Girls in STEAM.
My journey of self-discovery began when I turned 13 and was accepted as a young member of the New York Academy of Sciences. I participated in two of their programs:
1000 Girls 1000 Futures: It is a groundbreaking initiative designed to engage young girls interested in STEM and advance their pursuit of STEM careers through mentoring and 21st-century skills development.
Junior Academy: It is a passionate community of problem solvers made up of talented students, STEM experts, and industry leaders from around the world. Junior Academy members are elite students and mentors who are dedicated to designing innovative solutions to society’s greatest challenges! In this program, my team and I were named finalists in the Space challenge that involved developing a habitable colony on the moon. We will be presenting our project at the Global STEM Alliance Summit, 2021.
As my circle of friends grew, I came to know about and participated in the Digital Exchange Program, which encouraged me to learn about journalism, culture, languages and poetry. Being a part of this cohort encouraged me to express myself through two poems: Imperfections and The Truth about Fairy Tales. I'm currently putting finishing touches to my third poem.
Somewhere along the way, as I started dabbling in poetry, I decided to focus a bit more on women's health, education, empowerment and gender equality. This led to me founding Girl Up Janaki and She Shines Magazine. Girl Up Janaki (part of the United Nations Foundation's Girl Up initiative) is a club comprising passionate students who wish to change the world. We focus on helping underprivileged girls and marginalised women. I consider She Shines Magazine as a Gen Z mag created to empower women, end stereotypes/generalizations, promote the importance of mental health and self-care, encourage girls in STEAM and discuss many topics like feminism, body image, inclusivity, etc.
Given the situation today with the pandemic, mental health is fast becoming an area of serious concern. To promote awareness about a healthy mind, I created a video that would simplify the concept for those who didn't know what it was.
By creating videos like these, I started to enjoy graphic design. To help me explore this side better, I designed a part of the second issue of Mindchamps, a mental health magazine. I guess the enthusiasm paid off since I'm currently their Chief of Website Design :-) By now Mental Health has become quite a critical part of my life. Not surprising then, that I also find myself involved with the Meddling Kids Movement.
Though I engage in many projects, I do make time for relatively normal teenage things like reading Cassandra Clare's The Shadowhunter Chronicles and crying about a character's death in a book, movie or TV Show [R.I.P Hayley Marshall, Luke Castellan, Will Herondale, and many more] :( I also enjoy daydreaming, the most effective method of procrastination and have my share of panic attacks before an exam.
Check out my website: https://akshayapai13.wixsite.com/personalwebsite. To get in touch with me, feel free to mail me (akshayaspai@gmail.com)
For more information on She Shines Magazine, check out https://sheshinesmag.wixsite.com/officialwebsite and @sheshinesmag on Instagram.
Learn more about Girl Up Janaki: https://girlupjanaki.wixsite.com/club and follow @girlupjanaki on Instagram.