Meet Ariana and Vybhavi Karim and Kotiredy | President and Vice President of the Alpharetta Girl Up Chapter at Alpharetta High School

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ariana and Vybhavi Karim and Kotiredy and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ariana and Vybhavi, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
As high school students in this day and age where work, school, and extracurriculars are in the juggle of our lives, finding balance can be extremely difficult. However, being able to lead this club, with all the responsibilities that come with it, has taught us how to be transparent and responsible. For one, managing the Feminine Hygiene product drive we had last year managing a home essentials drive this year included organizing the drive, tracking inventory, and gaining support from outside groups. All of these were tasks that required us to understand how to prioritize our time and delegate tasks to our club members. When things got hectic, we communicated with each other and took breaks. If we needed to add some weeks to our plans, we understood that that was okay because it would help our process long-term. In fact, when we took breaks to focus on school or other extra-curriculars, we worked so much harder when it came time to focus on our project. All in all, we realized that juggling everything didn’t show commitment and ambition but instead recklessness; taking our time and planning ahead for prioritizing different things at different times was much more rewarding.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
We started the Alpharetta Girl Up chapter in the fall of 2020, as a chapter of the greater United Nations Foundation’s Non-profit initiative that was created to provide an outlet for women to obtain leadership skills and follow their passions for advocating and fundraising for other women around the world in harder to reach countries. The main objectives include aiming to achieve education for all, adequate and inclusive healthcare, leadership opportunities, freedom from violence, and count in the government, and bringing this mission to Alpharetta High School was the least we could do to contribute towards gender equality everywhere. We, unfortunately, did have the roadblock of COVID-19 and virtual learning, but we managed to coordinate and create a sizable movement throughout our school. Despite the difficult year, we’re proud to say that we brought attention to female role models, FGM/C, climate disparities, the gender and racial intersectionality women of color face, period stigmas, and successfully carrying out a Period Poverty Drive. This school year, we have continued to persist in the challenging environment to organize another larger drive in partnership with another organization. We’ve also truly enjoyed holding in-person meetings where we had the chance to discuss topics ranging from self-care to racial disparities. We worked diligently throughout the late summer months to plan the logistics and implementation of the drive. Throughout the three months, we were able to highlight the urgent issue of period poverty not only in Georgia but all around the world. Furthermore, we were able to forge new relations with clubs and people around our school and county. We hope that there will continue to be fruits of this success as we allow new leaders to lead next year.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
There is so much to do in Atlanta, and I know our itinerary would be endless. However, we’ll keep it short and simple to not overwhelm you with all Atlanta has to offer. If you’re looking for some great walking and access to the best shops, we’d recommend checking out Downtown Atl. There’s the High Museum of Art for my art fanatics, PONCE Market for some great food, and the Civil Rights Museum for the history buffs. More than that, you get to see a whole community full of Southern Hospitality fill the streets with color and enthusiasm. If you’re looking for something closer to the suburbs, we’d recommend checking out Avalon, Forum, or Hoseon for a mix of shops and food. It’s also great for a nice stroll with friends. Overall, Atlanta is so diverse and vast that there are no limits to what you can spend your time doing.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
During our time running this club, we have had so many supporters, whether it was in terms of encouragement or offering us help in achieving success. For one, our members have been great with participation and their interest has been crucial in allowing us to successfully execute our events. The guidance from our club sponsor, Ms. Lacey McLemore, has been very helpful because it really allowed us to navigate the process of setting up a large drive. Furthermore, our school’s clubs including Women in Stem, FBLA, and Alpharetta Student Council have greatly helped us encourage participation and gather significant portions of our donations. We’d like to thank Soham Sonawane for connecting us with the Homeless Period Poverty Project and putting our donations to good use. If we didn’t have all this help, we might not have been able to get this much participation and the number of items that we did. This year, we actually partnered with a non-profit organization called Gateway Prep to organize a drive on a larger scale, reaching out to various schools in the county. The planning and execution that we did together has been really important in allowing us to run such a large drive. Overall, both of our drives would not have been this successful and engaging if it weren’t for all these amazing people helping us along the way!

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