In a world where accessible medical knowledge for teenagers is often limited, two grade 11 IB students, Ariana and Alizeh, are working to bridge the gap. As the co-founders of Meducate Teens, a youth-led initiative, they are on a mission to inspire and educate fellow adolescents about the medical field through social media content, events, and awareness campaigns. Since launching in August 2024, the organization has already provided many students in the Greater Toronto Area with valuable insights into healthcare careers, diseases, and medical advancements.
Describe your charity/non-profit/volunteer work in a few sentences.
Meducate Teens is a youth-led organization dedicated to educating teenagers on different medical topics. Our goal is to develop an audience of teens who are passionate about pursuing careers in the medical field and will use their knowledge to inspire others to pursue medicine. Our social media posts, content and events include information about different medical specialities, diseases, medical advancements and more! Currently, our main focus is on our Alzheimer’s Awareness Campaign!
What problem does it aim to solve?
Many adolescents struggle to find engaging, accessible and age-appropriate resources to learn about the medical field. We wanted to bridge this gap by providing reliable and easily-accessible resources, helping students explore healthcare careers that they may have no prior knowledge about, but would like to research.
When did you start/join it?
We started this organization in August 2024.
What made you want to get involved?
We both want to go into the healthcare field in the future, though we ourselves are still uncertain on a specific career, thus we found Meducate Teens to be a rewarding and informative way to educate ourselves as well as other youths. We noticed that there were few accessible and age-appropriate resources for us as high school students, which caused a lack of awareness of the countless medical opportunities that are unknown and go underappreciated. This inspired us to create resources for other students like us!
What was the situation like when you started?
When we first started MeducateTeens, adolescents who went to school with us could not find easy-to-access medical knowledge, and we noticed that we ourselves were unable to find easily available information about careers in the medical field.
How has it changed since?
Even though the situation is the same for many people, we were able to provide many youths within the Greater Toronto Area with access to age-appropriate medical knowledge. However, we still have a long way to go to spread our information to even greater groups of teens and adolescents.
What more needs to be done?
We believe that more efforts should be made by schools and universities to create accessible and cost-effective resources for high school students who want to pursue a career in healthcare. Typically, many teens immediately connect the healthcare field with doctors or nurses, which limits their perspective on the vast world of other opportunities in the field. We believe that shedding light on various unknown careers could open up pathways for teens to explore the medical field even further. For example, many universities are having summer medical programs for high school students, yet many of them come at high costs.
How can our readers help?
One of our current initiatives is to raise money for Alzheimer’s research in collaboration with the Alzheimer’s Society of Canada. Currently, the fundraiser is being held on GoFundMe independently by MeducateTeeens, however, we are switching our platforms in collaboration with the Alzheimer’s Society of Canada to gain an even larger reach of people. The fundraiser opens on March 29 on their website. We would love it if everyone could donate! Even a little goes a long way!
Do you have any events coming up?
We have multiple events that are in progress and will be announced sometime in the future, so please look out for those!
Where can we follow you?
PAY IT FORWARD: What is an awesome local charity that you love?
Alzheimer’s Society of Toronto
