(light upbeat music) - One of the things I love about Teen HYPE and the whole idea is I feel like what you're doing is helping young people find their voice and not only find their voice, but also find where and how they can use it.

- Absolutely.

- And it's such an important thing to do when you're a young person.

- It is, it is.

I'm sure you can remember those years during your 10 years.

(laughs) - Sometimes fondly.

Sometimes not so fondly.

But I remember.

- The importance of having space to do that.

When you have those moments of self-discovery and you are trying to find out who you are is such a beautiful moment as you kind of stumble upon that.

One of the beautiful things about teenagers.

- How did you come up with the idea for Teen HYPE?

- Oh, I wish I could say I took credit for an idea.

Co-founder, but it was a very like divine order thing.

We started our work many years ago in a hospital actually under public health.

And we quickly discovered how important youth voices and those young people actually came together, created a council, a young person said, "I've got an idea for a name, how about Teen HYPE?"

And things just kind of took off from there.

We did a lot of work in the community early on with young people.

And one day we got a call for a larger audience and realized we couldn't do a normal, like, didactic presentation, and we had to come up with this idea of trying to do theater.

- Theater, right.

- And that is where theater was born.

- Yeah, and the number of young people who've gone through this program is phenomenal at this point.

- Oh yeah, we are going into year 21, so we are approaching adulthood also.

- That's right.

- And it feels like, I can't believe that we've served well over 30,000 kids.

- It's incredible.

That number is just mind-blowing.

- Yeah, it is.

And still feels very small enough to see young people come through the door and still recognize them by name and see young people that have gotten married and are doing wonderful things.

- Yeah, yeah.

And Omega, you are a member of Teen HYPE.

Tell us about how you got involved.

- Well, how I got involved was, first, I didn't know anything about Teen HYPE, but at the time I was homeschooled and I was really looking for somewhere to express myself and be myself and discover who I was.

My father actually, he recommended Teen HYPE to me.

And I became interested and I was just drawn to the opportunities that they were giving out.

Like, I saw the singing, the chances of poetry, the chances of dancing and acting, and that really spoke to me.

And I ended up signing up and we went to the interview 'cause the interview process, before you are admitted, like actually in Teen HYPE, and I passed the interview and I was just greeted with so many, like, friendly people, and I just felt like I already had a community without actually like getting to, without having the bond yet.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- There was already something there.

- [Stephen] That's really powerful.

- And I would say that's how I got involved in it, was just that.

- Yeah, - My father was like, "You should do."

I'm like, "I should."

- "I'll try that out," right?