2025 Teens Dream: DTC Friends 2025
DTC Friends 2025: Educating and Empowering Teens to Protect Their Online Rights
Although the UN typically defines “Youth” as individuals aged 18-35, I co-founded and now co-chair the Dynamic Teen Coalition (DTC)—the first and only Teen Board at the United Nations—when I began working at the UN’s Internet Governance Forum at age 14. The UN operates largely as a multilateral system, but the DTC comes from a different perspective: a community-driven, multistakeholder space. From this vantage point, we’ve had no choice but to watch helplessly as the online human rights of teens are eroded by national governments through new age verification laws, beginning with Australia. These laws are aimed at locking young people out of the internet, their education, and their future.
To fight back, we are developing a new educational series, DTC Friends 2025, building on the success of our beta test last year. With the right support and funding, this series could make a world of difference for adolescents everywhere.
The Problem
Just a few weeks ago, Australia passed sweeping age verification laws that restrict teens’ access to online spaces. These measures were rushed through Parliament despite universal opposition from experts, including the Australian Human Rights Commissioner. Australia is the test case, and other countries are already lining up to follow suit. These laws are presented as protective but instead deny adolescents their rights to education, free expression, and participation—rights that the UN affirmed in 2016 and 2021 as applying both offline and online.
Our Vision
DTC believes teens have the right to access the digital world for education, social connection, and personal growth. Laws that lock young people out of online spaces are a direct attack on these rights and jeopardize the principles of inclusion, equality, and justice. Through DTC Friends 2025, we aim to raise awareness, educate, and inspire action to protect adolescents’ human rights online.
Our Call for Support
We are seeking partners in production and support for this project—and please kindly note, not just through this generous grant but by any means you have at your disposal. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Adolescents have human rights, and these rights must apply everywhere, including online. By supporting my work as a Media Producer through DTC Friends 2025, you’re helping us equip teens with the knowledge and tools they need to stand up for themselves and for their futures.
Our video connects directly to SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions). If we don’t act now, we risk creating a world where young voices are silenced.
Join us in this fight for education, equality, and justice, and help us turn the tide. Thank you for considering our submission.
Pyrate Ruby Passell
DTC Co-Chair
CERN OQI Friend