About Youth Be Heard
Youth Be Heard is an online gallery for youth writing and art. Our mission is to elevate youth expression so you can inspire each other and the world.
Established in 2018 as a 501(c)(3), with its beginnings in Greater St. Louis, YBH is now elevating youth creative expression nationwide.
Our vision is for all youth to believe in their own value and potential.
We take youth voice seriously and provide editing, mentorship, and youth leadership opportunities to cultivate their talents. With these supports, youth create amazing things and impact society for the betterment of us all.
Youth Be Heard cultivates the voices of youth to help reshape the media landscape by including more diverse perspectives and mindful youth contributors. We don’t tell youth what to think- we hold space for them to process how to think. As such, all opinions expressed on youthbeheard.org represent the views of the individual author or artist, rather than of the organization. We aim to uplift a multitude of perspectives so we can see other points of view and disrupt the echo chambers and burst the filter bubbles found online. If you disagree with something, write about it! Send it to us here.
Our thoughts and our voices are core to us. But too often we don’t believe in ourselves or think our work is good enough. This kind of thinking keeps us from growing and from doing good in the world. We all miss out.
All content and comments are monitored before publishing, making YBH a safe space to take creative risks, experience the editing process, and share work to influence others.
Topics of interest include anything youth care about. Some of those might be state or federal policies. Others might include how to make a decision on a career or college, finding your identity, navigating relationships, and managing mental health and stress. We integrate media literacy and positive youth development theory, knowing that youth voice should be taken seriously and integrated into the real world. Read more about theory here.
When submitting writing or art youth will receive a customized response and one of the following may happen:
- Your work will go through our editing process (you make the final decision about all recommended changes) and may be published on youthbeheard.org
- You will be encouraged to submit your work to another reputable platform (we will help edit your work and coach you through this process)
- The work may be selected for publishing in an annual hard copy of “Best of Youth Be Heard” or for printing in other forms
Why should youth write and create?
So you can hear yourself.
- Writing and art are therapeutic and empowering
- Practice expressing your voice for a lifetime… too many people grow up thinking their voice doesn’t matter, and then we have an imbalance in the voices representing our collective society.
- If we don’t write or create, then we also don’t grow and improve.
- It’s fun! Don’t miss out on the joy of creating because you’re worried it won’t be good enough. The process is worth it.
So you can hear each other.
- You can inspire others when sharing how you’ve overcome challenges and had the courage to make tough decisions.
- We want diverse voices, views, and topics to encourage greater understanding and empathy. We are better together.
So adults can hear you.
- Societal structures are created by adults but impact the everyday lives of youth. Whether it’s education, healthcare, or your fantastic lunchroom, decision-makers need to know how policies impact you. Your experiences and ideas deserve to be heard.
“As creatives, we live in this space of validation. It took someone outside of my inner circle to validate my work, it took another entity to say ‘your work is valuable’. To say that maybe my work is worth something in this world.”
Adiba Nelson