Michelle Lin

Founder,
The Initiative

Michelle Lin is a youth advocate who seeks to advance the intersectionality of mental health, social justice and climate change for the betterment of society. She is pursuing an interdisciplinary approach through psychology, politics, philosophy, biology and law for her professional and personal development. 

Growing up, the biggest lesson she learned is that in order to achieve and enjoy something, she needs to make an effort. She learnt through her boarding school journey, where she experienced both positive and negative thoughts about the prerequisite activities in school. Her biggest takeaway is that one doesn’t have to like and be good at everything, but the main part is to try out and participate in new things to aid and further self-discovery. In the end, acquiring real world experience is key to personal growth. 

At school, Michelle chooses her extracurriculars and leadership activities by looking for what she likes the best and what her main interests are. For the extracurriculars outside of school, she chooses them by deciding what is useful in the future. One of her favorite extracurricular activities would be debating and another would be being in an orchestra.

To further her impact in her areas of passion, Michelle founded The Initiative, with a mission to help young adults to find their own, successful way of having an enjoyable life by leading them to find an achievable dream and their own definition of a happy life. The Initiative relates to her future major by helping her and her team understand the ways that people think about their future and their understanding of the world. This knowledge and understanding is paramount for the Initiative to bring justice to people who are in need through law, and to create systems change, this must be accomplished with long-term sustainability in mind. As such, Michelle is preparing a two-pronged approach: first by conducting a review of start-ups and projects which have similar missions for research and feedback formation, and second by leveraging on the outcomes to form a social enterprising platform for realizing happy lives. All interested youth are welcome to register their dreams through the website in order to facilitate cross-cultural and peer-to-peer exchange. 

In the future, Michelle wishes to be known and respected for the work she carries out in bringing impact and inclusion to key political and social issues, and support future generations to do the same, bringing power, equality and justice to all.