Anshul Tewari

I realized that, you know, a lot of us young people, we grew up in this culture of silence.

We are told, don't question, don't think critically, don't ask too much.

And that was something that really frustrated me.

I loved writing, like I said, so I thought that I'll do something interesting.

I launched a writer's training program.

Young people, they want better jobs, they want to be skilled, so I thought I'll skill them in writing.

And by that time, by the way, I had about a thousand readers on the blog.

So I thought about 30 people will apply, at least 30 people will apply for this program.

And to my surprise, only two did.

So I took those two and gave them the best that I had.

Every single day, I would train them on how to write better.

But what they were writing about was actually tough issues.

Gender, discrimination, climate change.

Issues that we're not taught to talk about.

And something slowly began to shift in them.

The more they wrote, the more they began to question.

They started acting.

They started wondering why things were the way they were.

And that motivated me to go school to school, college to college, sticking up posters, asking more and more young people to join me.

Slowly and steadily, a community began to form.