Voices That Challenge -

Today I attended a "Leadership" conference-- I put this in quotes because I had only found out its true meaning today but we'll get back to it later-- named Voices That Challenge wherein students from different schools all over Ontario gather and discuss worldly issues. At the start of the conference was a wonderful speech by Stephen Lewis. So great it was that by the end of it I was in the verge of tears and felt more inspired than I ever felt in my life. He talked to us about the many problems in Africa and other less fortunate countries where people, mostly women, suffer from HIV/AIDS. He also talked about orphans, discrimination against the female gender, and the many imbalance between the developed and undeveloped countries of the world. What touched me the most was when he was telling us of his experiences of witnessing children watch their mothers die, hut from hut, family to family. These children, no older than I am, witness death so early. There is no way that I could fathom the thought of having to lose your mother because you did not have the right medicine to ease her AIDS symptoms. What's worse is that this medicine is so accessible to us here in North America and it could be, too, in Africa. Why isn't it? I don't quite know the facts but what I know is that we are not giving enough. We aren't giving enough because we don't know enough. And why don't we know enough? It's because we are too caught up with our lives, which we live by the religion of consumerism and whatnot. We spend too much, and I won't lie because I do, too. If we all could only cooperate and pitch in to make a difference...
If only...

Another issue mister Lewis tackled is the discrimination against women. I deeply adore his passion and ongoing belief against the disrespect of females in form of sexual harassment. Perhaps it is because I am a female myself that I feel angered by this, but who wouldn't be? I would think that anyone who hears about a woman being raped and having a pistol shot in her vagina would be enraged. I would think that anyone would be so furious if they heard of doctors in another country having to surgically try to fix women's genital parts due to sexual harassment, women contracting AIDS due to the lack of a right to say no to sex, or simply young girls who aren't able to go to school because they are girls and nothing more. I know it would, because it enrages me. Anger, however, is not enough. We need to do something and we need to do it fast.

Now by the end of his speech I couldn't help but feel so little and so helpless. It's as if I'm only a tiny dot on a piece of a puzzle and I have no idea of how to bring the pieces together. I figured that if this bitter reality is going on in the other end of the world, then what the heck am I doing over here, living an ever so comfortable life while another girl, as young as I am or even younger, has to live on and provide for her siblings because they have become orphans? She can't even go to school. She wouldn't know what menstruation is, wouldn't know what it's like to have a mother. Most things that I take for granted are things she couldn't ever have. It's a sad reality. It's too sad that I am close to tears just from typing this out. Anyway, I figured, if I was a dot on this humongous puzzle then I might as well become an active part of it, and do something about the distance between the pieces; the forces of inequality and injustice which prevents the pieces from coming together. I need others' help, though. It's a good thing that I'm not alone on this one. I know I'm not, because there were about two hundred other students in that auditorium, encompassed by that eye-opening speech from Stephen Lewis. I could feel the tension and it gave me a sense of empowerment. We can do this. Let's do it!

So what is Leadership? What about it? In Voices That Challenge, we were also privileged to attend workshops and the like. The class I attended in the morning was purely informational stuff where we learned about the Student Trustee position and how the education board hierarchy works. The one that I learned most from was the afternoon workshop, though. Right off the bat, as we enter the room, we got the question "What is Leadership?" I thought there must be a deeper meaning to this question. I answered with "leadership is something we do to accomplish goals we strongly feel about". I think I got the gist of it. Leadership isn't just attending workshops. It isn't just hearing speeches. It surely isn't just something you do to get a day out of school. Leadership certainly isn't just a title. The workshop made me realize that to "have leadership" is to have a goal you truly believe in and have the courage to meaningfully and successfully accomplish that goal along with other people. That's great! We are all in Leadership. We all believe in gender equality, we all believe in helping the undeveloped countries, we believe in the same things. We're half-way through. We have the goal, all we need is a process. Some people are way ahead of us, though. It's people like Stephen Lewis who make me realize that it's not too late to change the world. And yes, WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD. Let's all do it together.

But what am I doing to have Leadership? I don't know where to start yet, but I'll definitely go out there and volunteer as much as I can. It's not so hard to get involved when you're young. There are a lot of organizations who are dedicated to help others. This coming March break I will be helping out at a daily food bank. My goal for this year is to be able to go to Kenya in the summer and help build schools for children. It should be fun. =)

Let's have Leadership NOW!

link

"The Stephen Lewis Foundation (SLF) helps to ease the pain of HIV/AIDS in Africa by funding grassroots projects that help individuals, families and communities ravaged by the pandemic. It provides care to women who are ill and struggling to survive, so that their lives can be free from pain, humiliation and indignity; assists orphans and other AIDS affected children in every possible way, from the payment of school fees to the provision of food; supports heroic grandmothers, who bury their own children and almost single-handedly care for their orphan grandchildren; and supports associations of people living with HIV/AIDS, courageous men and women who have openly declared their status."