YouthEmpowered Radio
Interview with Eric Komoroff
CC: What is Youth Empowered?
EK: Youth Empowered (www.blogtalkradio.com/youth-empowered) is a weekly radio show for young people and the people who care about them. Each week, Dr. Jason Stein, co-host and founder of iRYZE Life Tools for Teenagers (www.iRYZE.com) and I attempt to provide a balanced, more holistic view of how to deal with the issues young people often grapple with. At the same time, we make a concerted effort not to shy away from difficult subjects and to be as open, honest and inclusive of the various viewpoints and diversity of opinions as possible.
In our work and as parents, both Dr. J and I work with youth on a daily basis. Youth Empowered has become a grounding force for us, and a place where we can discuss some of the more intense, powerful and dynamic topics and issues that we face each day.
CC: What types of topics do you cover?
IEK: f youth are affected, it’s on the table. Some recent topics include: New Year’s resolutions, goal-setting, dealing with tragedy, politics, jazz music, morality, social and emotional learning, intolerance, identity, family unity, Facebook, respect, suicide, obesity, loss and grieving, sex, health, bullying, sexuality, the meaning of love, and the list goes on.
CC: How much involvement do youth have in the development of the program?
EK: The show was initially created to be very much a forum for young people. What emerged, surprisingly, turned out to be quite different: the folks who seemed to most appreciate the way we were conducting these conversations, were adults.
As a result, Dr. J and I decided to focus the show more systematically towards that audience. We felt that, through talking to grown ups about issues of youth empowerment, we were perhaps helping young people more than if we were only speaking to them. Both Dr. J and I work directly to young people in our other lives, and it has become really exciting that we can share insights and ideas with adults as well through Youth Empowered.
We always start the show by saying: if you care deeply about a young person, you will find something of value here. Certainly,
most young people are living in a home with their parents or a parent, but that is not the full tapestry of adult-youth relationships that make up our country. We have youth whose primary influencers or caregivers are