The lifechanging opportunity of TEDxYouth Events.

over the past two years

i’ve probably sent about a hundred

emails in the process of organizing tedx

events

and my introductions have always gone a

little bit like this

hi my name is stephanie farmer i’m a

senior at edmonds woodway high school

and i am the founder and organizer of

tedx youth at yoast park

the first ever tedx event for the edmond

school district

and then i would go on and on asking

someone for something

but long before that i was just a

student in the classroom at edmonds

woodway

and some of the most inspirational

material i’d ever seen projected onto

the large boards at the front of the

room

were talks from ted conferences

frequently

adults with incredible stories would

share their amazing ideas

but they lacked a relatability i didn’t

see myself represented in them

that’s when i discovered tedx youth

events all of the sudden

i saw people my age making a difference

and sharing their incredible ideas

and it inspired me to want to do the

same but this inspiration came at a

pretty difficult time

see i’ve been a ballet dancer since i

was three years old

spinning in circles falling down and

getting back up again

but in june 2017 everything changed

the doctors told me i had a rare

unexplainable brain tumor

an acoustic neuroma and i was paralyzed

by fear

in that moment i was convinced that all

of my dreams were dead

and that i had nothing for me anymore

i felt like i could never dance again

and

my story had suddenly become so much

more difficult to tell

two months later i checked into seattle

children’s hospital at 7

30 a.m the surgery was 13 hours

they peeled back my skin cut through my

nerves

removed the tumor and left nothing

behind but a 5

inch scar a tiny piece of mesh and no

hearing in my right ear

i didn’t understand what was happening

to me and i couldn’t

explain it without crying my story

became so much more complex

and i was so afraid of what the future

held for me

but all of that went away the second i

tried to understand my story

and i knew the only way i could do that

was by expressing it

so i started writing more and more but

most importantly my dancing had an all

new layer of meaning

it wasn’t just a conglomeration of

movements every anymore

every single step i took was a

justification for all of the pain i had

gone through

i had found a method of expression and a

way to tell my story

but i looked around and realized that a

lot of people my age didn’t have that

same blessing

so many teens felt silenced and

disrespected by the people in their

community

i saw people my age pleading the city

council to let their voices be heard

they were venting in feminism club and

being silenced in english class

and i couldn’t let this continue i wrote

an article for the school newspaper

about our dance team

and a member came up to me crying

explaining how meaningful it was to see

her story being told

she reminded me of how i felt right

after my surgery

isolated and silenced and i knew i

couldn’t let that continue

so i passed teens like her the

microphone

tedx youth at yoast park opened up

speaker applications to every single

high schooler in the edmond school

district

and we ended up with eight incredible

speakers who shared their stories and

realized that they deserved to be heard

like emma at 17 she was diagnosed with

stage

four hodgkin’s lymphoma a very rare kind

of lung cancer

and she told the story about what it

felt like to be completely disrespected

by her doctors

but speaking at a tedx youth event made

her realize that her story was worth

telling

and empowered her to make a difference

a lot of kids my age have complained

about how boring our town is

how little we have to do with our

suburban lives

and i’ll admit i used to do the same

thing i grew up in downtown seattle

going to museums every weekend

so when we moved to edmonds i was pretty

convinced there was nothing for me there

until i started listening to the stories

of the people around me

all of a sudden i realized that there

were kids my age in my

area struggling but overcoming their

obstacles and creating an impact

like jared he grew up with

autism and doctors told him that he

would never even be able to walk

but now he’s a thriving junior at

linwood high school and defied all of

the odds

he wanted to tell his story and prove to

everyone

that we all are superheroes in our own

way and we all have unique talents

my complaining classmates needed to see

this they needed to see kids their age

making a difference in their communities

tedx youth speakers are teens who have

checked off step one

they prove that we don’t have to wait

until we’re older to make a difference

teams can start making change right now

the reason why tedx youth at yoast park

exists

is the same reason why every school in

the world needs a tedx event

they amplify the voices of young people

and they encourage other people to make

a difference

now i am not saying that organizing is

easy

remember how i started by explaining

that i had sent 100 emails

i can guarantee you that at least a

quarter of them were dedicated to trying

to figure out what to name the event

i asked for tedx admins and they said no

i asked for tedx admin

schools and they said no admin school

district edmonds teens edmonds youth

no no no i’m 17

and organizing this event gave me gray

hairs

but all of that was worth it the second

i walked onto the infamous red rug to

introduce the event

though these voices of these teenagers

deserve to be heard

and every hour i spent building by hand

an

x for our stage was worth it when i

started to hear their stories on stage

every single teen in the whole world

has an incredible story that deserves to

be heard

and tedx youth talks are an opportunity

for those ideas and prove that teens

have ideas worth spreading thank you

you