Out of High School

The UN Youth Champion is a position created last year by the United Nations to achieve youth development goals,and Coleman is the first to be appointed. She has undertaken a six-month tour across the globe to meet young people from different backgrounds to understand their concerns about career,family and socio-economic factors. “Being an actress and having all the fame and attention sounds cool for a moment. But I realised that there is a greater purpose behind the status that I have achieved. For me,this means reaching out to the youth from across the world and I knew I could not achieve that by sitting in America,” she says. Her approach has been to “listen to the kids” rather than “be preachy” to them.

Her position as a UN Youth Champion uses a trait Coleman nurtured as a teenager when she was involved in community development efforts and church programmes in her hometown. “Since I have been involved with youngsters for long,I have a natural affinity towards helping them,” says Coleman,who counts her mother as an inspiration. “She instilled in me the need for a good education and talent as tickets out of any situation. I spread the same philosophy to youngsters I meet,” she adds.

After trips from Bangladesh and Singapore,Coleman has been in India since last week. She met girls from an orphanage in Mumbai and children from a primary school. In Delhi,she held long discussions with children from Amity school,Saket. She continues her journey to Turkey and later South Korea. But she promises to be back “maybe to work in Bollywood,” she says. “When I was on the flight into Delhi,I saw a Bollywood movie and fell in love with the song,dance and the colourful imagery. I was sure that I will be greeted with a song and dance performance when I got off the flight,” she says.