In February 2025, I decided to found Youth Torch. Alone. My initial goal was to publish English-language popular science articles, primarily focusing on current events and political economy.
On February 3rd, I published my first popular science article on WeChat.
In July 2025, Youth Torch formed a two-person team.
On July 3rd, we made a crucial decision: Youth Torch’s future direction would shift to interviews on the theme of “social loneliness,” targeting the general public. However, plans are subject to change. We spent the entire day searching but couldn’t find the group we wanted to interview, but unexpectedly discovered a breakthrough with international students. From that moment on, we decided to focus our interviews on the theme of cross-cultural loneliness among international students.
In October 2025, we welcomed our first off-campus member. Subsequently, Youth Torch’s community gradually grew. On October 3rd, the WeChat official account published the first philosophical article by an off-campus member. Afterward, I also created several pieces of content, including theoretical academic pieces and pieces drawing on my own Model UN experience. On March 2, 2026, the core two-person team of Youth Torch returned to campus, meeting more international students from different countries and establishing initial, long-term communication channels.
In April 2026, Youth Torch successfully organized its first offline off-campus trip. The three-person team led three members from Mexico on a tour of Suzhou University’s campus, Shiquan Street, and Lingering Garden, among other representative Suzhou architectural landmarks.
In June 2026, Youth Torch decided to revisit old friends, focusing on personalized storytelling and in-depth communication. To date, we have successfully conducted in-depth interviews with members from Australia and Mexico.
Throughout June, I volunteered at a rural school. During this time, I met scholars, professors, and government officials from countries in the Global South. While seizing opportunities to interview, I meticulously documented the stories that unfolded between us. I did my best to help many members solve their problems and introduced our culture and history in depth during the study tour. We received almost universally positive feedback and praise from international community organizations.
As of now, Youth Torch has 23+ active members, 21 original articles published, 221 followers, and 5500+ reads.
We started from scratch, creating an interview program with Suzhou characteristics. Looking back on the past year of perseverance and continuous improvement, I’d like to share some stories with you.
The first story is about how we decided to interview international students. It stemmed from opportunity, but also from our courage. My co-founder and I decided to wander around one afternoon, hoping to gather inspiration for our activities. We went into a convenience store to buy water, and as we came out, we saw two international students. I immediately decided we should interview them. Although we hadn’t prepared beforehand and were a little hesitant, we followed them, eventually running up to them and stopping them just before they entered the teaching building to ask for an interview. Surprisingly, they readily agreed. We were delighted with the interview and gained a lot, which led us to decide to continue our interview journey. This story teaches us to be courageous. Opportunities are fleeting, but when we bravely and proactively seek them out, we can take a giant leap forward. We didn’t deliberately design an event; we simply discovered the opportunity during the process, bravely seized it, and developed it to where we are today.
The second story is that after launching this project, due to a lack of experience, the initial interviews didn’t meet our expectations. This led some of my teachers and classmates to be skeptical of our activities, viewing them as childish and frivolous. We didn’t give up. Instead, we learned from each event, summarized our experiences, and consciously improved in the next interview. This is why Youth Torch has grown steadily within a year.
The third story is that throughout the entire event, we didn’t deliberately ask foreign members to cooperate with our interviews. Even during a one-day event, I spent half an afternoon helping a member find a bank. Although we weren’t ultimately successful, we built an unbreakable friendship and trust, laying the foundation for the success of later events. Our choice to go with the flow doesn’t mean we don’t care about the event; rather, we believe that helping specific individuals is more important than the event itself. Our initial goal of spreading warmth remains unchanged. Our club’s goal from the beginning has been “to create valuable and rewarding activities to spread warmth.” We have never wavered in our mission and have consistently upheld this principle in practice. This unwavering will and creativity have sustained us to this day, allowing us to create value.
This year, I’ve increasingly realized that the true value of a community lies not in the number of events organized, interviews conducted, or data accumulated, but in whether it truly changes others, and changes itself. Youth Torch has come a long way without any advantages, without ready-made experience, and without anyone telling us what the right answers are. We’ve learned as we went, growing through setbacks and lessons. From a chance interview to numerous cross-cultural exchanges, and now to a group of like-minded partners, every step we’ve taken has stemmed from proactive attempts. This year, we’ve gained not only content and achievements, but also the trust and friendship from friends around the world. Those moments of chatting, walking, and solving problems together are more precious than any article or event. The ultimate goal of entrepreneurship is not to grow an organization large, but to make an initial idea truly take root and flourish in reality.
Thank you for our courage in overcoming difficulties. Thank you for our unwavering commitment. Next year will be even better for Youth Torch.