At this week's Round Table, Emily, Erina, Jack, and Skyla spoke with Sumayyah Rose, the founder of What In the World (WITW). WITW is a publication dedicated to breaking down the news for young people and being a space for them to share thoughts and opinions as well as reflections about culture that young people need to know about because of the relevance it has on today’s world. Having been involved in politics with other youth her entire life, Sumayyah realized that she wanted to build this platform as a way to empower youth to share their opinions, thoughts, experiences, and stories to ensure that our voices are heard and acknowledged.
Sumayyah shared the process of choosing what to write about, and how she works to ensure that there is no bias and that the information presented is accurate and the sources are reliable. She shared how challenging the work has been since when she was starting out, the majority of the work was done by her. She inspired us by sharing the degree to which intrinsic passion outweighs giving up and by emphasizing the importance of persisting even through hardships.
As a Brit herself, who currently lives in the U.S, Sumayyah also discussed what she perceives as the cultural, societal, and political stark differences and similarities between Britain and America. It was very eye-opening to hear how similar, yet disparate, these two “sister” nations are.
We had a wonderful conversation about the various ways we can make politics a more welcoming, and less intimidating, topic for youth as well as how we can break down barriers to young people understanding politics. The fact that politicians, campaigns, and news tend to overlook young people is absolutely not okay and we have to step up and make it clear that young people are NOT apathetic; we are often uninvited. Now lets find out “What in the World” is happening. Thank you for listening!
