In 2023, Heidi Cuppari and Summer Gould launched EmpowerGen: Amplifying the Voice of the Future — a collaborative effort designed to spotlight the creativity, insights, and lived experiences of young people. From the beginning, the column was co-authored by Dream Tank founder Heidi Cuppari, with contributions from teens and young adults whose perspectives are too often overlooked. From day one, the purpose of EmpowerGen was clear: shift the narrative about today’s youth away from fear and decline, and toward possibility, agency, and hope.
Rather than echoing the doom-and-gloom messages dominating conversations about the next generation, EmpowerGen explores what happens when we trust young people as creators of meaningful change. As highlighted in articles like Beyond Doom and Gloom: Teaching Climate Change to Foster Empowerment, framing youth through a lens of capability and imagination has real impacts on mental health, motivation, and overall well-being.
Now, as Chief of Staff with Dream Tank, I have been given the exciting opportunity to step into a new role as the editor of Dream Tank’s EmpowerGen column! With my new position, I hope to amplify the voices of youth across Boulder, and globally!
My first article, “How Stories Built My Capacity for Empathy,” examines the role of literature and language in shaping my perspective and connection to humans around the world. I have always credited novels, stories in general, as some of the deepest teachers in my life. In this piece, I reflect on how growing up in a place that felt culturally and socially homogenous left me with a limited window into the wider world — and how literature quietly became that window. Through books, languages, and the characters who lived far beyond the boundaries of my own experience, I learned to feel with people I might never meet. Stories became a way of expanding my imagination, my understanding, and ultimately my capacity for empathy.
The article traces how this early relationship with storytelling shaped both my academic path and my sense of responsibility in the world. Reading does not just help me escape, it helps me connect, question, and soften. The research guiding my article taught me that empathy isn’t an abstract ideal; it’s something we can build through intentional exposure to perspectives different from our own. I hope this reflection encourages others to keep turning toward stories as sources of connection, insight, and transformation.
Read the full piece on About Boulder here. 💛
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