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The 2025 Art of Change: Yellow vs Blue project took Maya Ramaswamy, one of TealTie’s cofounders, to Utøya, Norway—an island marked by the heartbreaking events of July 22, 2011. In 2025, Utøya became the setting for a different kind of story: a leadership seminar bringing together young changemakers from around the world to explore mental health, empathy, and social impact. Against the backdrop of a place shaped by grief and loss, the cohort worked to reignite essential conversations about healing, hope, and what it means to build a safer, more united world.

Throughout the seminar, participants spoke openly about mental health—especially the quiet, often hidden struggles that many carry alone. Together, they wrestled with hard questions, practiced deep listening, and learned to look beyond differences in identity, background, and belief. For Maya, this was a mental health journey as much as a leadership one: a space to confront discomfort, embrace vulnerability, and imagine how young leaders can transform pain into collective strength and advocacy.

As a culmination of the program, each participant created a final project capturing their learnings. Maya wrote and produced an original song, “The Gift Utøya Gave to Me,” rooted in the connections, resilience, and courage she experienced on the island. The song is designed to live beyond Utøya—as background music in TealTie’s art workshops for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, at partner events, and across social media to reach anyone who might need a reminder that healing is possible. It also serves as a personal thank-you to the Yellow vs Blue team and fellow participants, preserving the lessons of Utøya in a form that can be shared, replayed, and felt.

This song created by one of our designers encourages us to pause, reflect, raise awareness, and stand united with those affected by sexual violence.
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