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Using Video to Raise Social Awareness
What is there to be celebrated?
As she gears towards the celebration of her 172 birthday, I mutter, confused to confide in her curse of ceaseless disasters. What is she truly celebrating? Her long but fruitless existence leading her children to beg and bootlick as they crumble at the mercy of exploiters. She stumbled, startled at the impediment placed upon her by so-called colonialism. A complete dissolution to her sovereignty. She claimed to be independent when truly dependency is at the avenue of her already weakened appearance-leading her children skedaddling in search for solace. And I wonder, what is there to be...
My case-study on marriage rituals among Christians in India
During my final year of high school, I had conducted a case study to understand the marriage rituals that took place among certain Christian communities in India - such as the Christians of Kerala, Goa and Mizoram - compared to the marriage rituals among Christians in western countries. The objective of my case study was to highlight the noticeable differences in these marriage rituals among the Christian communities in India as opposed to the Christians living in the west. To begin, a questionnaire was sent out to twenty three respondents belonging to Christian communities in both India as...
A gentle reminder for millennials to be kind
Kindness. An act from deep down in the heart human, without want feedback. In this era, I believe kindness can be fake and ignored. Many people misuse kindness. They know what kindness is, but they don't know how to use it, therefore, there are many people using kindness for gaining popularity and getting a good image. One day, I was doing charity work in my community by giving food and clothes to flood victims. My friend asked me to take a photo of him giving food to a child, which he then posted on Instagram. Later, I asked him why he did that and he answered that he wanted everyone to know...
Migration, diversity, and tolerance in Europe
Words unspoken
Do not be the one to sound the alarm. Do not be the one to ask questions. Do not be the one to say such words. Do not be the one who risks everything for the sake of another. They said. In 1915. In 1932. In 1938. And again in 1975...1994… 1995... 2004… 2016. And again and again and again and again... History is the storyteller that holds all truth, and yet when she speaks, much of mankind closes their ears. Is it that we are too afraid or too selfish? Is it that our own worlds are all too small or too large–– that we are too consumed with ourselves to notice the pain of others, that we are too...
The change you want
As I am short of words and do not know where to start, if you are reading this, I implore you to type the phrase ‘Lazy Youth’ on the Google website. If you are a Nigerian, there is a high probability you can rightly guess the content of the resulting thread. Let’s leave it at that for now. As a Youth Delegate at the 2018 African Youth Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, I watched a screen-play on Jaha Dukureh’s achievement on the topic of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). The documentary titled ‘The Girl Who Said No to FGM’ narrated Jaha’s Dukureh’s journey of triggering the law that abolished the...
A Conclusion For Poverty
The Convention on the Rights of the Child: The children’s version
I want to change how society sees people with disabilities
We participate in order to change the system!
The edge of time, the persistence of imagination
I am not the biggest fan of science. Although it was my favorite subject throughout much of my childhood, a love-hate relationship soon developed during my high school years. I even jokingly labeled myself as “anti-STEM,” much to the dismay of my mother and older sister who are ardent enthusiasts of the field. Although I still believe in the significance of developments under this scholarly discipline, my passion has manifested itself within other fields. One major interest of mine is culture and the forces that shape it, particularly as it relates to the representation of minorities. Being an...
Silence is not an option
How would you feel if a gun was pointed at you for asking for a fair price for bread? How would you feel if you were forced to fight for the necessities that should be given to you as basic human rights in the first place? How would you feel if you were shot down by your own people? The answer to these questions is; we wouldn’t know how it feels. We would not know what it feels like to be in that situation and god forbid no one deserves to know the answers to these questions like our brothers and sisters in Sudan do. But why wouldn’t we know the answers to these questions? There were obviously...
Can photographs capture dreams of the future?
You are not welcome
South Asians and the criminal justice system
UPDATE JUNE 2020: After writing this article, a few people reached out to me, pointing out some information that could be misleading. The point of view this article is written in implies that South Asians do not have troubled relationships with police officers or the criminal justice system. While this may be true for those of us who reside in primarily upper middle class neighborhoods, this is not the case for those South Asians who have grown up in predominantly economically-disadvantaged neighborhoods or ethnic enclaves nested in major cities. The South Asian-American identity itself is so...
This is why I am reaching an anti-feminist today
If you ever go to Lima, this is my advice: before heading to Cuzco or Cajamarca, take a bus to a place called Villa María del Triunfo. It is one of our pueblos jóvenes, young towns, where the dust and dirt from unpaved roads are the patina that covers houses rarely taller than two stories high. Ask for a place called Pamplona Alta, and you will be directed to a hill, un cerro. You will see tiny green, blue, yellow houses growing all around the road that leads to the hilltop. Stop when you see a wall, a white vertical line that forbids you and the inhabitants of Pamplona Alta to see what is...
What happened with Fitri?
| Jakarta, Indonesia 1st April 2016 at 11p.m | The scenery looked normal when my mom, my sister, and I left the mall. People pass by carrying groceries happily. But it immediately changed, because there is a spot that looks different which attracted our attention. A little girl sitting on the sidewalk in front of the mall was counting money in her hand. We approached her and asked what she was doing there. She said, "I'm counting my money from work all day," and we asked, "What is your job?" Then she replied, "Buskers". I was stunned to hear her answer. Her name is Fitri, a 7-year-old...
What power means
"The word power can be interpreted with both positive and negative meanings. I started creating my works by exploring the exact definition, which means to be able, and whether or not I agreed with it. Living in a reality that presents both aspects to this term, the interpretation of this word is limitless, which is also the reason behind many current conflicts. The term attracted me because of my personal interests with the problems present in the status quo, and how they essentially lead back to the same place: a race for power. But I believe that in order to really understand the term, one...