Just two years ago, one of junior Divya Rallabandi’s students was a timid sixth-grade boy who struggled with a lisp and found it difficult to speak publicly. The boy can now comfortably talk and participate in class because of the countless practices she has helped him in as a volunteer at the Young Genius Debate Academy.

Having been been an avid speech and debate competitor  since her freshman year, she decided to start volunteering and working with students at the Young Genius Debate Academy in Saratoga two years ago in order to pass on the knowledge she has gained from the school’s speech and debate program.

“Looking back, I've realized that I’ve learned so many skills like how to express my opinions, formally create an academic discussion and accept that others will disagree,” she said. “So I decided that I wanted to help other kids gain those same benefits.”

Another volunteer, freshman Brian Zhu, started volunteering last year at Young Genius in order to “expand and refine [his] skills.”

Both Zhu and Rallabandi spend about four hours a week volunteering there. Zhu finds the experience enjoyable because he has built relationships with several of the students he has worked with.

“I have become friends with many of these kids,” he said. “They give amazing speeches, and I really like hearing what they have to say.”

Rallabandi finds volunteering rewarding because her students are going through experiences that she had gone through when she was younger.

“A majority of the kids I teach are in middle school or elementary school, which means they are really busy trying to figure things out and who they really are,” she said. “It's really interesting to help them channel their perspectives and energy verbally.”

Another student Rallabandi worked with during her freshman year had been struggling in school socially.

“I remember his mother came to me on the first day and told me that she hoped that learning public speaking and attending speech workshops would help him make friends at school and also stand up for himself,” Rallabandi said.

At Young Genius, it is common for students to come with specific goals, like getting rid of their lisp or learning how to communicate easily with others, and this particular student had both of those goals.

Over the next few months, Rallabandi had him practice various speech exercises like repeating words or tongue twisters. She also tried to help him overcome his fear of public speaking by delving into the root of his anxiety.

After taking a few weeks off from volunteering at the beginning of junior year, Rallabandi returned to Young Genius and found this student in one of her classes.

“I was in utter shock when I saw him because not only had his lisp improved tremendously, he was also an active participant in the class,” she said.

Through volunteering, Rallabandi has been able to learn more about speech and debate herself.

“I used to think it was just a process of arguing or trying to prove a point,” she said. “But I realized that it's more about exploring different ethical issues in the world and forming an opinion about them.”