Kripa Kannan is a 19-year-old advocate for mental health and education accessibility. As a member of the UNICEF Youth Council and the cofounder of Addressing Wellness & Equity, a non-profit organization dedicated to healthcare with no boundaries, Kannan has made significant strides in promoting these causes, advocating at Capitol Hill and organizing community-wide service initiatives driving hundreds of young people to make change. 

We had the pleasure of speaking with Kannan about her advocacy stories, experiences and insights.

What prompted you to focus your current advocacy efforts on mental health and access to education?

My focus on mental health started right after COVID. One of my close friends was experiencing a lot of mental health struggles at the time, and there was no one really to talk to about that. There weren’t a lot of resources available. It's hard for some youth to get help, especially when they are still dependents. 

So I want to raise awareness about the importance of having more accessibility and resources—also reducing stigma. I am from the Indian/South Asian community and mental health is so stigmatized there. 

My education advocacy started after hearing my parents' story. My parents immigrated from India twenty years ago. They both grew up in poverty and had to try really hard to get an education. My dad often didn’t have enough food to eat, and my mom didn’t have safe shelter from the extreme weather. They came to the United States and sacrificed to give me, my brother and my sister a better education. 

Hearing about their experiences growing up instilled a deep empathy inside me for people going through similar experiences. Along with that is a sense of determination to address those systematic inequalities that are unfortunately present in a lot of communities. This personal connection to poverty, health and well-being really gave me the drive to make a difference. Whether that be working with my nonprofit or advocating for mental health and education in the public eye.  

Do you share these stories publicly when you’re advocating for these issues?

Yeah, definitely. I think the best form of advocacy is storytelling. It makes your voice so much more powerful. Stories stick much better with people than just stating the hard, cold statistics. So I advise others: if you have lived experiences and you’re comfortable sharing them, definitely go ahead. 

We often compare sharing personal stories publicly to “stepping through a doorway.” Some people step through easily, but most have to pause and think about this significant step. How has it been for you and what would tell someone thinking of sharing their stories?

I've always been a very extroverted person, so public speaking was never difficult. I did speech and debate all throughout middle school and I did poetry slams. So I was very exposed to the public speaking realm. But it’s different when you’re sharing something you really care about. That was the hardest part I had to overcome. 

So, I didn't actually start out being vocal about my stories in front of people. I started with blog posts because, for me, it was easier to write it. For a while, I just kept them to myself and didn't send them out anywhere. It was more of a journal. Then, when I was reading it over, I thought,  “This might be helpful for other people.” 

It’s only recently, within the past year, that I’ve started opening up more publicly, speaking at events. Obviously, it's hard at first when there are hundreds of people in the audience and you're making yourself vulnerable. Stepping through that doorway took a year and a half or two years. It definitely wasn't easy, but I'm glad to say I'm through it now!

I know how scary it is to have your friends know about something that happened to you or to your family and have people you go to school with every day see what you're doing and repost it on social media. So first, I would just say that anybody doing this is brave for even thinking about it. The biggest thing is just edging that door open and sticking your foot out because there are so many issues that aren't spoken enough about.

And once you get a toe through that door, there are a lot of opportunities that open up for you, whether that be leading a local club or being on a youth board, or speaking on a national council.

Do you find people are receptive to listening to youth advocates?

It's hard because sometimes youth just get put on some panel so people can say,  “Yeah, we have youth in our organization.” It's sometimes hard not to feel tokenized. The way I've combatted it is by entering the room and knowing that I deserve to be there. Others in the room could have, like, 30 or 40 years of industry experience under their belts. And I just graduated high school. So it's definitely a hard place to put yourself in. But youth need to be at that table, sitting with executive leaders, emphasizing that we have a very different perspective and they can't be making decisions for us. We should be able to have a voice and be able to influence decision-making.

Do you ever encounter an attitude of hopelessness, or even cynicism, from your peers? 

Yeah, it's kind of hard to see the impact of your advocacy when you're doing it on a very small scale. So, I am trying to emphasize that even if you do one small thing, it could have a chain reaction, and it could help so many more people. 

Always focusing on the negatives makes it seem like there's no hope, and there's no point of even trying to take up advocacy and trying to make a change because it seems like nothing's ever going to get done. Everyone is very anxious about how our climate and our world is going to look in the next few years, but if we do act now, so much is possible. 

You can just start small. If you’re having trouble finding those opportunities to speak, just making simple reels or TikTok videos or maybe just starting off with a blog might be easier to express yourself. Maybe talk about it anonymously—that's still impactful. Go at your own pace. I mean, you can't speed this up.