I thought about the things that have helped me be self-sufficient and there was one resounding answer: mythology. Mythology started out for me as wild stories with an extreme and shocking cast of characters, but as I grew older and thought more about what the stories actually meant, I gained a lot of insight into human behavior, society, ethics, and beliefs. Zeus doesn't cheat on Hera because he's just a bad person, he does it because he can get away with it due to of an unequal power dynamic between himself and his wife. Sigyn doesn't support Loki because she loves him, she does it because in the society she lives in, it's the standard for a woman. 

During COVID, a time filled with sociopolitical instability, disease, and change, I was only in sixth grade, and I was forced to learn to navigate the world earlier than I was supposed to. I began to notice a lot of parallels between the real world and the mythology I was spending my time reading. I came to love mythology as a fun framework to discuss difficult issues and topics, and it ultimately made me interested in psychology, philosophy, and ethics.

During winter break of my Sophomore year, I finally took the plunge and made an outline for a course. I sent it over to ten different organizations and heard back from three. In January, I taught the first class in partnership with Kids Helping Kids, CT at the Stamford Boys and Girls Club. I taught alone for two months until I decided to start scaling, and Caroline and Riona joined in late March. A month later, Jennifer Yin and I met on a Model UN trip and she joined me as the CEO and developed the Chinese Mythology curriculum. We've been gaining members and building up the organization ever since.  And in accordance with my original motivation, we aim to help teens and younger kids alike reach their fullest potential by getting  interested in thinking about the world around them and how they interact with it. 

-Lilia Vine, Founder and Co-President