Rhea Chacko is a junior at Waubonsie Valley High School with a deep passion for education and youth empowerment. Her experience on the school’s Speech Team taught her the importance of speaking up about meaningful topics and using her voice to advocate for change. Inspired by this, she leads public speaking workshops for young children at the Alive Center, helping them build confidence and learn to express themselves. Through her own experiences navigating high school, Rhea noticed how uneven access to guidance can shape a student’s confidence and sense of belonging. In her TEDx talk, she explores what education could look like if guidance were treated as a right rather than a privilege, urging communities to create structured systems where no student has to navigate adolescence alone.