To be the Change I want to See

In my submission last week, I had ended the note in my journal with a small glimpse at my ambition. My life vision is to see a world that is beset with gender equality, and until then, the fire in my stomach will remain burning. My life vision is to see my goal achieved, and therefore my efforts for this global crusade for gender equality becoming redundant. I want to do this through three ideas, some of which are already in the process of becoming a reality.

My first endeavour is to be a storyteller, a voice, and a conduit between the unheard and the discerning listeners of the world. I want to be able to narrate the stories of oppressed women, women who have suffered discrimination and abject deprivation, to the world that may otherwise not know of their stories. I want to share with the world the stories of women who have fought back against difficulties and adversities, emerging like the proverbial phoenix does from its ashes. To do this, I hope to kick-start an organisation that I have chosen to call the Red Elephant Foundation. I hope to have volunteers to come together, to meet and speak to women who have stories to tell, and to actually tell these stories through this organisation. I choose to call it the Red Elephant, because Red is a colour that is used to make you remember something, and Elephants have great memory. That’s what I want these stories to be: to be things you never forget, and things that you remember always, to make change happen.

My second aspiration is to be able to take to young girls, inspirational stories of women who were ordinary girls to start with, but made it big because of their sheer grit and determination. I want young girls to see that they have a place in this world: and that no matter what people may tell them, they always “hold up half the sky” as the most recent way of speaking expresses this beautiful truth of equality. I want young girls to look up to the world’s greatest role models and to learn and evolve, and to look adversity in the eye and say, “Move over, buddy, I’m going to change the world!” To this end, I’ve taken on a project of my own to interview around 40 or 50 women across the world: these are women who I personally adore, admire and really, REALLY love. I hope to self-publish this book, and get as many girls in the world as possible to read it.

My third goal is the one that’s in my mind more than on paper or in action and that was where I left off in my last post: a school for little girls. I hope to open a school for young girls, to start with, in my city, and with the help of a network of devoted women, across the world. I hope to light the candle of empowerment by sharing the flame of the great joy of education. Just a couple of girls in each city, and different batches of classes, and we can see a tidal wave of change.
I would like to be a Voices of Our Future Correspondent because of all the goodness that my endeavours can derive from it. I won’t lie about my selfish motives: I want to be a part of the movement that World Pulse can give me, to help me get my voice on these three platforms out there to the world. I am the voice of our future, and I want to just live that. An inspiring friend of mine called Dominique Vidale-Plaza, taught me that all truth is actionable. And to make that truth actionable, one should not be afraid to uncover those truths. I want to be the change that I want to see, as Mahatma Gandhi had put it so beautifully in his words. My hope is to be able to do that: uncover the truths and make them actionable and to be the very change that I want to see. That is what I hope to derive out of the Voices of Our Future program.