Thirteen-year-old Yousuf Khan is a storyteller at heart. While he enjoys crafting his own creative and fantastical tales, Khan loves to write and share the stories of events impacting his community and his peers.
This year Khan will get the opportunity to live out his storytelling dreams as a TIME for Kids reporter. The eighth-grade student at Hadley Junior High in Glen Ellyn was selected as one of 10 national correspondents for the news agency’s youth reporter program.
“I’ve always been able to write about things I’ve enjoyed, and this will give me a great opportunity to share those stories,” Khan said.
TIME For Kids is a weekly classroom news magazine that gives youth reporters a platform to report on current events with an aim of educating and encouraging children to read.
Khan said he’s been familiar with the TIME Magazine youth program throughout his elementary career in District 41. He said he and his classmates would read the articles and often think “how cool” it was that the stories were written by students their own age. When he learned the digital and print publication was looking for new reporters for the 2015-2016 school year, he decided to apply. Khan applied for the writing position in August.
“I was thinking ‘I wish I could be like them (kid reporters),'” he said. “I was thinking this would be a great experience.”
After his initial submission, Khan was selected from more than 300 applicants as one of 24 finalists and after submitting a new essay on a person of interest, Khan was named one of the 10 Time for Kids reporters.
Khan’s mother, Naazish YarKhan, said her son was the only candidate from Illinois selected as a TIME for Kids reporter.
Khan will begin his one-year tenure with Time for Kids in October. TIME for Kids reporters typically range in age from 8 to 13. One story that Khan hopes he will have the chance to sink his teeth into is the current Syrian refugee crisis. He hopes Time will present him with an opportunity to talk with one or more of the thousands of refugees fleeing war-torn Syria.
“There are a lot of people in our community who are from there. This would be an important story for the Glendale Heights community and the DuPage County community as a whole,” Khan said.
Other reporting opportunities could include interviewing authors and celebrities. Time will offer different stories for the reporters to tackle and provide the contact information, Khan said.
Khan said he’s planning on staying tight lipped about his reporting position until his first article is published, which will include his photograph.
“I’ll say ‘hey, take a look at this,’ to all my teachers,” Khan said.
While he hopes his teachers will be impressed with his reporter position, Khan said he hopes they and other readers will be more impressed with the quality of his work.
District 41 Superintendent Paul Gordon said he was excited about Khan’s opportunity and was proud of the steps the young man is taking.
“We are extremely proud of Yousuf. This is a significant accomplishment and we applaud his success. We look forward to following Yousuf as he begins his journey as a Time for Kids reporter,” Gordon said.
Alex Keown is a freelance reporter.
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