Sixteen-year-old app developer and activist Amanda Southworth took the stage at the 2018 Pennsylvania Conference for Women and captivated the room with a deeply personal story forged in the pain of her childhood anxiety and depression. With the backdrop of a national mental health crisis that affects 1 in 5 kids between the ages of 3 and 17, Southworth delivered this message: Suffering can be invisible, but it is not inevitable, and we can all do something about it.
“Action is not important,” she began, “it’s mandatory. The world will continue to hurt us until we join the effort to fix it—things won’t get better unless we make them. We have a responsibility not only as women but as people on this earth to do our best to improve things. If we have the ability to be fighting then we need to be—for the people that don’t have that ability.”
Recalling her years of victimization at the hands of bullies, Southworth recalls, “What hurt the worst was the people who saw what was happening and did nothing.” From the main stage of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, she issued a challenge. Read More
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