About Us
Our Goal
Our goal is to raise awareness about the increased prevalence of mental health risks among those with intellectual and developmental disabilities. By collaborating with clubs at our high school and within our community, including Mind your Mind, Archery Club, and Future Doctors of America, we have been able to educate over 5,000 individuals. We hope that we can expand our efforts to even more individuals within our school and development connections within our local and national communities. By spreading awareness, we are creating more “ripples” of kindness on a daily basis!
Meet The Team
Rishika Chikoti, Cofounder
Rishika Chikoti is a junior at Adlai E. Stevenson High School. At school, she is on the executive board of HOSA Future Health Professionals of America & Future Doctors of America, the President of History Fair, a research coordinator on the Congressional Debate Team, and enjoys competing in Future Business Leaders of America at the State and International level. Rishika is a classical Indian dancer and aspires to explore medicine, specifically neuroscience, in the future.
Caroline Mazur-Sarocka, Cofounder
Caroline Mazur- Sarocka is a junior at Adlai E. Stevenson High School. At school, she is on the executive board of Student Council, a research coordinator on the Congressional Debate Team, and enjoys participating in HOSA and FBLA competitions. Caroline hopes to explore medicine and business in the future.
Social Media Ambassadors
Social media ambassadors act as advocates for The Ripple Initiative within their social groups through various personal social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. Through such platforms, ambassadors aim to raise awareness about mental health risks among those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Amal Naqvi
Shayaan Shaik
Community Collaborator
Brady Rivkin
Brady Rivkin is a sophomore at Adlai E. Stevenson High School. He is very involved in band at school and participates in the Latin program’s certamen competitions as well as in the math team. Brady is as yet undecided on what he would like to do in the future, but he has been strongly influenced by those who have helped him mend the trauma that gave rise to his diagnosis of being on the autism spectrum and is considering following their paths to healing others.
The Ripple Initiative had the opportunity to sit down with Brady Rivkin and talk about his mental health journey. We hope that this interview can act as a catalyst for awareness regarding the heightened mental health risks among those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
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This interview was conducted on January 31, 2020. I, Brady, did not view the questions beforehand, and I recognize that for this reason my spoken answers were at times incoherent. Please excuse any sentence fragments, otherwise unfinished sentences, and other inconsistency in attention to grammatical conventions. It is of note that individuals on the autism spectrum like myself tend to struggle in the area of verbal and nonverbal communication, and in classroom situations, schools often give accommodations including extended wait and response time, which is one of my own accommodations, so when watching the interview, keep this in mind.