Hanna Suh, Vaardan Shah and Sophia Lu of Project Oyster
With all the focus on student wellness in Palo Alto recently, you’d think that local teens would have no problem seeking help when they are feeling stressed or anxious.
“There are counseling resources on campus, but students are hesitant to use them due to scheduling issues and fears of stigma,” said Project Oyster co-founder Hanna Suh. “That’s why we wanted to address that stigma by creating a platform where kids could share their experiences and encourage listeners to seek help and support from others.”
Project Oyster started in BEAM class
The idea for Project Oyster first emerged as part of BEAM, a non-profit with a location at Gunn High School, where students design and market their own business ideas. In the BEAM class, Vardaan, Hanna, and Sophia ended up in the same group and began brainstorming problems they could address together.
“We had a shared interest in mental health and wanted to help other students learn that everyone at Gunn is struggling with their own challenges,” said co-founder Vardaan Shah.
A podcast formed from the ground up
The trio had no previous podcast experience before they started Project Oyster and did not know if other students would be willing to be interviewed. However, they swiftly mastered both the tech of podcasting and the art of interviewing.
“At first we had to reach out to students to ask them to interviewed on Project Oyster, but now kids come to us,” said Sophia Lu. “But we quickly learned that everyone has deep stories to share.”
Student stories bring light to hidden struggles
Each of Project Oyster’s 20-minute podcast episodes focuses on a single student, who shares the story of a mental health challenge that he or she has encountered during high school. The stories range from insecurity to anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Sophia Lu serves as the facilitator for these conversations and she does an fantastic job. It’s remarkable to listen to the depth of honesty that emerges during the Project Oyster podcasts.
One episode, called “Class Clown with the Biggest Heart,” features a student leader described as someone who “always makes everyone smile.” He describes the insecurity and social anxiety that he hid from others in the early years of high school.
“The first step to it is admitting you are not ok and to say that I don’t want to live like this anymore,” he explains. He credits his counselor at the Gunn Wellness center for helping him learn to weather the ups and downs that are an inevitable part of life.
“Anyone who says they can handle it by yourself just wants to be sad. It’s a cycle. You can’t handle it by yourself.”
In another episode called “The Healing Process,” a student discusses her time in the hospital due to suicidal thoughts and depression. “The main thing about mental health is that everyone has it and it should be treated like a physical ailment,” she said.
“When you break your arm, everyone signs your cast, but when you have mental health challenges, no one signs your ‘brain cast.’ It needs to be ok to discuss it and make it less stigmatized.”
Stories for teens and adults who care about them
The quality of the interviews on Project Oyster rivals that of many other professionally-produced podcasts. That’s thanks to Sophia Lu’s strong interview skills and deft touch with drawing out the difficult stories that her fellow students share.
Project Oyster’s podcast offers insights about the reality of being a young person in the twenty-first century that are relevant for anyone who cares about teenagers, from parents to educators and community members.
From the oyster comes a pearl
The teens chose the name of their podcast a bit randomly, but it turned out to be prescient. “The stories that students tell on the podcast are like oysters; you open them to find a pearl,” explained Sophia Lu.
Project Oyster’s mission is to improve teen mental health and to reduce the stigma around getting help. The following hotlines are available to anyone who needs help:
Victoria is the founder and editor of Palo Alto Pulse and has lived in Palo Alto since 2007. Victoria's diverse professional background includes working as the editor of GreatSchools.org , as a senior writer for KIPP and Teach for America, and as a radio producer for City Visions on KALW (91.7FM San Francisco). She is a graduate of Leadership Palo Alto and a member of the Palo Alto Partners in Education Advisory Board.
She has a BA in English from Tufts University and Masters in Education and Secondary Teaching Credential in English from UCLA.
