Meet Hasini Lakshminarayanan, a YouTuber, young nutrition ambassador and now an author

Earphones plugged in and smiling from ear to ear while fielding questions, Hasini Lakshminarayanan makes quite an impression as she interviews peers on a YouTube channel. After all, she is just 13 years-old. Her talk shows feature children aged between 7 and 17 years and these youngsters have made a difference in areas like environment, literature, art and sports.

On February 26, the eighth-grade student of Chettinad Vidyashram in Chennai added one more feather to her cap by bringing out her book, The First Step, featuring 25 best stories from her 100 plus featured interviews.

Vice-president of India M Venkaiah Naidu and Director General of Police C Sylendra Babu have written the foreword for the book, which has been published by Emerald Publishers.

Hasini has many accomplishments to her name – she is the Young Nutrition Ambassador for Integrated Child Development Scheme of the Government of Tamil Nadu, a speaker for TEDx Youth, a child activist, a freelance student reporter and the founder of The First Step, which is the non-profit she runs with 20 other children.

Each of the roles she dons speak about the campaigns she is passionate about including creating awareness about Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Like the diverse people she has been hosting on her channel, her areas of focus have also been growing.

For instance, being chosen as the young nutrition ambassador for ICDS happened when she was planning to do something on youth empowerment. “I met V. Amuthavalli, IAS, who is the director of ICDS and our conversations led to this new role,” says the Saidapet resident. Here, she creates awareness on the importance of good nutrition by bringing in experts in the area.

A recent live show featured Dr Kousalya Nathan, answering queries on good touch and bad touch, before a large audience of students.