5 Teens Who Are Making a Difference

5 Teen Girls Who Are Making a Difference

By Kristin Rawls | September 14, 2011 at 8:58 am

Despite sensationalizing headlines to the contrary, a 2009 research study found that many teens are shaping up to be responsible, compassionate young adults who want to make a difference. The study had some very reassuring news:

“Youth today intend to make responsible choices and refrain from risky behaviors.”
“Youth today value diversity and acceptance.”
“Youth today demonstrate a strong sense of civic engagement.
“Youth today say they can withstand peers and are willing to stand up for themselves.”
“When confronting moral dilemmas and difficult decisions, youth today draw strong influence from a variety of sources, especially parents and family.”

So, it should come as no surprise that a number of teens are doing important work as innovative entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders. Check out what these five young women are up to!

Photo from mtv.com

Zoë Damacela, 19, started learning to sew at just 14. Damacela’s family was homeless when she was small. A desire to turn things around for her family motivated her to start her own clothing line by the age of 17. Now attending college, Damacela “sells her designs from her [college] dorm room.” A business student and Tyra Banks mentee, she plans on applying what she learns to clothing design. Sarah Shelton of MTV writes:

“Zoë was featured on Seventeen’s “Pretty Amazing” special, which aired on MTV last night. The show followed five young women as they traveled to New York to compete for the cover of Seventeen magazine. In the end, Zoë won!”

Meanwhile, she wants to give back. In a nod to her roots, she “donates clothes to charity fashion shows and homeless shelters.”

Photo by digitalestories.com

Liza Gurtin of San Diego, 17, is doing her part to raise awareness about water shortages in developing countries. This year, she won the prestigious the Hellen Diller Family Foundation Tikkun Olam Award for her community service achievements. “I have been involved with community service for as long as I can remember,” she said. “I was always helping the homeless, and once I got to California, I did a lot of work with Sudanese refugees.”

Now, she oversees Walk for Water, “a 5K walk where participants carry buckets of water in order to simulate conditions that women and children around the globe endure daily.” Proceeds are funneled into well-building projects in Tanzania, and the award money she won was donated to similar efforts in Ethiopia. Over the past two years, she has helped raise more than $35,000 for the Walk.

Photo from shareinafrica.org

Shannon McNamara, 18, is a founding board member of SHARE, a nonprofit that donates money to girls’ education efforts in sub-Saharan Africa. The organization “has created [four] libraries in Tanzania, donated 33,000 books to 11 libraries, [and served] more than 8,000 students and teachers in [three] African countries.” In recent years, a number of high profile celebrities began to lend their voices to the cause, including Oprah Winfrey and Queen Rania of Jordan.

McNamara is also a member of the United Nations Youth Advisory Committee, which promotes young people’s involvement in the international body. She remembers becoming concerned with world poverty at the age of 13, “when her parents took her and her siblings to Peru during summer vacation to volunteer in an orphanage.”

Photo from icarewecare.org

Priyanka Jain, 17, is the founder and president of iCAREweCARE, a nonprofit organization that works “to create a globally aware, socially responsible, and action oriented generation” by helping high school “students take initiative and leadership roles in the movement for social change.” The org does this by providing social networking opportunities for teenagers throughout the world to connect and organize on behalf of a number of causes, including education, children’s rights, healthcare, environmental justice and others.

Jain, who is optimistic about the power of teenagers to create change, writes, “I’ve met brilliant teenagers who talk with tremendous passion about their ideas to solve global problems.” She says teens can “bring a fresh perspective to global problems” by “thinking beyond the political gamesmanship and maneuvering that often stands in the way of real change.”

Photo from humanesociety.org

Stephanie Cohen, 17, is an advisory board member the Humane Society, an animal welfare organization. She has been passionate about animals since she was just 8 years old, when “she read a newspaper article about an injured baby manatee in Florida who was being cared for by a group of marine vets.” Just a short time later, she started her nonprofit organization, Kids Making a Difference (KMAD), which works “to preserve our environment with recycling efforts, public education and coming to the aid of animals in need.”

Last year, Cohen published a children’s book called Sydney Saves a Species: The Power of One Girl, in hopes of inspiring other children to take action.