Reframing Our Future By Looking Inside: EF Challenge

Reframing Our Future By Looking Inside: EF Challenge

Hello, everyone! my name is Manuela Orozco, I am an 8th grader from American School. Today I am going to share with you my point of view about my hopes for my future. About our future. 

I'm going to tell you a story, the first time I heard the word

hope was when I had a presentation in front of every one of my school, I was very nervous, so my mom told me: "Sweetie, don't be nervous, you are going to do it great, have hope that everything is going to go well " At that time I thought that the meaning of hope was something to give us strength when we are nervous. Also, one day we were watching the news and was about 2,5 million people that died in 2014 and the journalist said "We need to have hope that the number will decrease" I thought that hope was something about killing people, I was very confused and I didn't understand the meaning until I opened my eyes. 

When we are young and we don't understand the world, our parents try to explain it to us with simple words and tell us things like "Don't receive candy from strangers" "Don't trust men, they are dangerous" "You don't have to be alone in the streets, is dangerous" and we ask "Why?" they just answer " Because the world that we live in is messed up, just don't do it" and that is how the world is presented to us, like a simple "Hi". And when we start to understand things is like when the teacher arrives with some papers in hand, creepy smile and suddenly "Pop quiz". 

We start to realize that is not all rainbows and beautiful

unicorns everywhere, that sexual abuse, pollution, water contamination, deforestation, global warming, potential World War III, weapons of mass destruction, lack of education, lack of job, poverty, inequality and many other things are present. 

Studies show that only from environmental problems 2,5 people have died, and the number will continue increasing in the future. A new year has started and we say "Hi" with blood, in the first 15 days of 2019, just in Colombia, 24 people died, imagine the ones that will come. 

We are in a society that tells girls to be skinny and have curves, but, too skinny?  "You anorexic! Eat! You look like a pin. Too fat? "Pig! Stop eating!" Too tall? "You will never get a man because you have the high of one giraffe". Too short? "Use hills!". Makeup? "You look like a clown, don't use makeup". No makeup? "You look like a zombie, wear some makeup" Why is "gay" an insult and "heterosexual" is not? Why does "black" sound wrong and "white doesn't? Virgin? Nun, No virgin? Slut. Pretty? Stuck-up. Ugly? Disgusting. Cuts herself or himself? Wants to get everyone's attention. Lives? Doesn't deserve to live. Suicides? She was a good person. That's the society of nowadays. A selfish and plastic world, boasting about appearances and lies.

Maybe you are thinking about what you are going to eat tomorrow or how pessimistic this girl is, but to be honest, I’m just a kid, I really don’t know where to start, what to do, I am confused and scared. But, I have hopes: 

I have hopes that pollution is going to decrease and we will see the stars again. 

I have hopes that sexual abuse is going to disappear and innocence will be there. 

I have hopes that deforestation will not exist anymore and we will breath fresh air again. 

I have hopes that these problems will decrease.

But this can be only possible if we stop. If we stop being ignorant. If we stop being mediocre. 

“It is up to us to live up to the legacy that was left for us, and to leave a legacy that is worthy of our children and of future generations” 

                                             -Christine Gregoire 

Thanks. 

By Manuela Orozco, Step 8.