Sridevi Krothapalli, 17, a senior at Illinois Math and Science Academy, stands inside the Aurora school on Jan. 18, 2023. Krothapalli created a digital arts and literature magazine, Kahani, for kids in hospitals.
to children’s hospitals for kindergarten to middle-school-age patients. Kahani means storytelling in Hindi.“My mission with Kahani includes helping distribute art and literary magazines for kids in hospitals across the USA was recently featured on an Indiana CBS affiliate station, where a hospital representative said the magazine is “a beautiful example ... of children being supported by people who don’t even know them.”“Having a variety of artistic and literary material for patients and families creates an opportunity for normalization in the hospital,” said Ann Hannan, director of the Riley Cheer Guild and Creative Arts Therapies.
Krothapalli produces Kahani with the help of half a dozen people that include her family, friends and IMSA students. As Kahani’s founder and creator, Krothapalli oversees outreach and promotion and serves as designer, artist and writer. She spends most of her school breaks working on Kahani. She said she wants to enable patients to contribute in future editions.
What was formed to spread happiness during the pandemic is now something Krothapalli plans to work on for as long as possible.When not studying neural network algorithms to estimate the number of Earth-sized habitable exoplanets in our galaxy, Krothapalli enjoys filmmaking and playing tennis.