Connecting around a common experience
A Chicago duo is marshaling energy toward social justice in a ‘new normal’
When Lauren Tapper and Krishita Dutta felt isolated during the pandemic, they decided to do something to help support not only them, but also other teens.
Tapper and Dutta, Chicago teenagers who just finished their sophomore years at the University of Chicago Lab School, co-founded COVID-TV last year as a way to help socially isolated teens connect.
“It’s hard when everyone expects teens to just go back to normal after experiencing this trauma,” Tapper said.
Tapper recently won a Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award, given to teens who show exceptional leadership and engagement in initiatives to make the world a better place. The $36,000 award can be used to further her education or this work.
COVID-TV has dozens of global teen ambassadors who are helping to raise awareness and funds for things like securing masks when health care workers needed them, providing food and writing representatives about issues they care about. Dutta said they were able to raise $20,000.
“I’m really happy with what we managed to do,” Dutta said.
Teenagers have shared blog posts about their lives during the pandemic, with people posting from Nebraska to Mumbai and writing about empathy, loneliness, panic attacks and silver linings.
Now, as the pandemic ebbs, their attention is turning toward supporting teens as they slowly return to whatever they encounter in the new normal — restarted sports teams, fully reopening schools, wrestling with the aftereffects of Zoom burnout and mental health challenges. They both spent nearly half a high school experience in a pandemic.
“COVID-TV wants to be there for teens as we transition out of the pandemic,” Tapper said.
Teens were able to get vaccinated after most adults. Being able to see vaccinated friends has felt freeing, Tapper said.
“In that sense it does feel normal, but every time we go out, someone makes a remark about how strange it is that no one’s wearing a mask,” she said.
Both want to be there to support other teens as they emerge from a strange year that often included stress and anxiety. Dutta added, “The aftermath of COVID is probably going to last a long time.”
The ability to connect people around a common experience spurred more ideas, and their next projects. One is Empowerteen, which they hope will help harness some of the momentum
gathered from projects like collecting masks toward helping teens connect with social justice campaigns like Black Lives Matter and addressing the pay gap.
Also, Entrepreneurship-TV will launch soon, designed as a mentorship program that will connect teens to other student entrepreneurs, such as college students. Dutta and Tapper hope both efforts will launch in about a month.
It doesn’t feel like work, Tapper said, despite the balance of weaving a social life, homework, clubs and managing COVID-TV.
“It’s been something that I just kind of turn to, and it doesn’t feel like work at times when I get to read the blog posts and share them and read people’s
comments,” she said. “It feels like something I enjoy, but also know other people enjoy.”
For Dutta, the work has helped spark a love for social justice campaigns. “It’s just made me realize how important it is to, if you see a problem taking place, just making sure that if you have the ability to solve it, to do that,” she said. Dutta also works with The Borgen Project, a nonprofit that addresses extreme poverty.
As for what’s next, Tapper said COVID-TV has helped guide her own purpose. She started an internship with Hands For Peace, which encourages American, Israeli and Palestinian youth leaders to create conversations across cultures that can lead to positive change.
“It’s just about connecting different communities through dialogue,” she said. “My interest in that sparked from COVID-TV.”
She added, “It’s definitely changed how I see the future and what I want to do. It’s made me interested in communication, and that’s why I want to be involved in some kind of international diplomacy.”
Seeing how supported people feel by sharing their struggles, stories and success, Tapper said, has been powerful.
“It started as a way for me and my friends to connect, and it became a way that allowed other people to feel connected,” she said.