Taryn Everdeen — THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF YOUTH VOICES

TARYN EVERDEEN, 18

Taryn Everdeen is a writer, youth activist, and photographic journalist from Norwich, England. As a photographic journalist, one of Everdeen’s greatest accomplishments has been fusing her love for travel and speaking to strangers by creating her own photographic series entitled ‘Between the Crowd,’ which documents the people she has interacted with in major UK cities.

As a youth activist, Everdeen has focused on pressing issues such as gender equality and environmentalism. In 2018, she volunteered at Norwich’s Women of the World festival, using the momentum from this event to help create the Norwich branch of the UN Foundation’s Girl Up program. As a co-leader of this program she is responsible for facilitating meetings, planning fundraising events, and has even appeared on local radio to discuss issues surrounding gender equality. Everdeen is also environmentally engaged. This year, she launched a campaign to raise awareness of reusable menstrual products and the environmental impact of single-use products. From this campaign she created a film that landed her as a finalist in the 2019 Girls Impact The World film festival.

Everdeen is a longstanding member of the Young Norfolk Arts communications team. She regularly attends, photographs, and reviews arts events, creating content for the Young Norfolk Arts blog. Currently, she is also part of Engage!, a group of young people curating, planning, and managing a festival based around the theme of literature and social activism. Next year, Everdeen is planning to take a gap year to explore the world before heading off to university to study Modern Languages. She truly believes in the power of human connection and the ability of the youth to come together to create social change.

Haven't Got Time

by Taryn Everdeen

VERSE:

I think I lost my balance.

‘Cause now I just don’t know me anymore.

I feel I don’t understand you.

And maybe that’s exactly what made me stumble.

Thoughts and thoughts going round in my mind,

And in my head and in my chest, pushing out my eyes.

Open wide, open wide.

CHORUS:

I know that these things,

They’re a little bit hit and miss.

And I know that I haven’t got time for this

That I haven’t got time for this.

And I know that at the end of every cycle,

There’s another to begin,

And I know that I haven’t got time for him

That I haven’t got time for him.

VERSE:

Fill up some space with

Meaningfully meaningless pockets of time.

Broken, tired conversation.

Are we leaning

Or falling to one side?

Brush away, brush away.

Can we save it for another day?

CHORUS: X2

‘Cause I know that these things,