Teenztalk, an organization headed by senior Nadia Ghaffari, will hold a Teen Wellness Conference at the Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus on Saturday, September 30, to promote wellness with mental health speakers and hands-on activities.  

“I felt like we needed to be doing this in-person, because that contact you make with another individual in-person is valuable,” Nadia said. “Starting conversations around these topics is really the mission behind this whole event.”

Working with the organizations Bringchange2mind, Children’s Health Council, and Stanford Center for Youth Mental Health & Wellbeing, Nadia has organized speakers to talk about their experiences with mental health.

“A large number of speakers are teens who have overcome mental health challenges and want to talk about their story,” Nadia said. “We’re in contact with some teens who are working on mental health innovation — one person created an app to prevent bullying.”

The event will also include a number of activities intended to spread awareness of mental health issues. Attendees will make their own wellness kits with a variety of arts, crafts, CDs and merchandise with positive messages on them.

While the Teen Wellness Conference is the first live event she has organized, Nadia plans to organize similar events in the future. Teenztalk already has an online platform where teens all around the world can share their mental-health related stories on social media.

“[Teenztalk is] hoping that as we have more of these events and as more people start hearing about this, more people will want to contribute,” Nadia said, “We currently have a huge online presence and we want to continue to engage as many teens as possible.”

The event will take place at the Microsoft Sunnyvale Campus. Registration for the event is now open and will close on Friday, September 29.