OUR STORY
Our nonprofit started as a simple mother-daughter TikTok project - Asha humoring me in my quest to bring social emotional learning to teens through social media.
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One day, while doing a LIVE on TikTok, someone suggested we should be called the 'normalizers' because we were normalizing things that other people find strange, weird, abnormal, or even immoral. The name stuck, and turned into a full time endeavor with a mission to normalize stigmatized identities amongst teens.
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That soon evolved into The Kindness Project, one that is very near and dear to my heart. Of my teens, two are transgender, one is nonbinary, three are lesbian, and three are autistic. In our house, they are free to be themselves and be treated with love, empathy, and kindness...I want the same for them out in the world.
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Monica (she/her)
CEO and Co-Founder
KINDNESS AMBASSADORS
MONICA GUPTA MEHTA
Co-Founder and CEO (she/her)
Monica Gupta Mehta is a teacher, educational psychologist, author, nonprofit director, mom, and now an artist! She started teaching 20 years ago in a very progressive classroom, where she taught social emotional learning and sex education along with her humanities course. Monica took time off to raise her children, all of whom are autistic and queer, requiring extremely dedicated parenting and putting them at high risk for mental health struggles. Monica then went back to earn her masters degree in educational psychology, which she put to use creating educational content that she has taught over TikTok, Instagram, in her Normalizers podcast, and in her co-authored book, “It’s Totally Normal! An LGBTQIA+ Inclusive Guide to Puberty, Sex, and Gender."
ASHA MEHTA
Co-Founder and CMO (she/they)
Asha Lily Mehta (she/her) is a freshman at Northwestern University, currently studying physics and dark matter. As a neurodivergent minority lesbian, Asha has had to deal with microaggressions and outright bigotry for most of her life. In addition, the Covid 19 pandemic separated Asha from her peers during a critical phase of social development. Recognizing a similar combination of mental health, support, education, and socialization need in teens around the world, Asha decided to join Monica, her mom, in creating online safe spaces. Asha helped create a community that has helped over 100,000 LGBTQIA+ and neurodivergent teens around the world.