Earphones plugged in and smiling from ear to ear while fielding questions, Hasini Lakshminarayanan makes quite an impression as she interviews peers on a YouTube channel. After all, she is just 13 years-old. Her talk shows feature children aged between 7 and 17 years and these youngsters have made a difference in areas like environment, literature, art and sports.
On February 26, the eighth-grade student of Chettinad Vidyashram in Chennai added one more feather to her cap by bringing out her book, The First Step, featuring 25 best stories from her 100 plus featured interviews.
Vice-president of India M Venkaiah Naidu and Director General of Police C Sylendra Babu have written the foreword for the book, which has been published by Emerald Publishers.
Hasini has many accomplishments to her name – she is the Young Nutrition Ambassador for Integrated Child Development Scheme of the Government of Tamil Nadu, a speaker for TEDx Youth, a child activist, a freelance student reporter and the founder of The First Step, which is the non-profit she runs with 20 other children.
Each of the roles she dons, speak about the campaigns she is passionate about including creating awareness about sustainable development goals of the United Nations. Like the diverse people she has been hosting on her channel, her areas of focus have also been growing.
For instance, being chosen as the young nutrition ambassador for ICDS happened when Hasini Lakshminarayanan was planning to do something on youth empowerment. “I met V. Amuthavalli, IAS, who is the director of ICDS and our conversations led to this new role,” says the Saidapet resident. Here, she creates awareness on the importance of good nutrition by bringing in experts in the area.
A recent live show featured Dr Kousalya Nathan, answering queries on good touch and bad touch, before a large audience of students.
The video interviews are about believing in oneself, accepting compliments with grace and encouraging others with their story.
Hasini Lakshminarayanan says every member in The First Step, which was started in July 2020 to beat boredom, plays a role in the success of the video series.
Akshath Jaganmohan, who takes the title of chief edition officer, is a voracious reader and he helps Hasini Lakshminarayanan with writing blogs and transcribing articles. Krithik V, chief technical officer, helps with uploading the videos on the website and promoting them.
Does a lot of work go into creating a video? “Yes, sometimes it takes a month,” she says. She has a different set of people helping at ever stage.
How does she find a cross section of children across India to interview?
“The first 15 interviews happened because of suggestions from friends and well-wishers and were mostly from Chennai. Once that got rolling, I joined LinkedIn and it got easy to connect with a wider talent of children,” says Hasini.
Hasini Lakshminarayanan says her father, Lakshminarayanan, an entrepreneur, inspired an interest in public speaking. Sujith Kumar, founder Maatram Foundation, is another inspiration.
His speech at an award function where she received the ‘Memory champ’ award was what got her started on public speaking. On juggling school and a bunch of responsibilities. Hasini Lakshminarayanan says weekends are usually busy with two or three organisations calling her but online classes have come to her advantage. “When you like to do something and you enjoy the process and trust it, time is not an issue,” she signs off.
