A lesson in solidarity

Back in March, I returned from Pharping, Nepal, where I spent 4 months engaged in SCLC project, I took a bunch of pictures that I thought might interest some, click on "Nepal Now" to see Nepali people, hills’n’valleys through my lens:)

Going abroad at 19 has meant throwing myself into a big dose of life, it wasn’t easy, but then, few important things are. I’m pretty sure I’m not wrong when I say that the last year and everyone I met in my travels has taught me more lessons about life than 13 years of a Luxembourgish school ever could. Funny, how I was considered relatively “educated” under European norms, without knowing almost anything about what life is like for most people in this world.

I organised my big trip as part of the SNJ program “Service volontaire de Coopération” and the ONGD-FNEL, along the way I met many young people feeling similarly that there is more to learn far abroad, and now that we’ve all came back from places like South-Africa, India, Bolivia or Uganda we can agree I believe, that it is through volunteering that you realize what it really means to try to live a life of use to others.

In Luxembourg, we’re the lucky winners of the lottery of birth, ironically, we’re also known for forgetting amidst our overconsumption, the value of things.

That’s the point: value.

The value of family, support, insurance, stable income, second chances, electricity in schools, clean water (!!!!), protection from air pollution, our right to free public transport, and of course security.

Nepali families mostly have little of all of the above, even more so after 3 months lockdown. I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people, but consider doing the right thing even if no one else is doing it. Actions speak louder than words.

I can’t be the only one thinking that any health and social worker, teacher, lawyer and entrepreneur, would be better at what they do if they had spent some months working for free for really really good causes in South America, Asia or Africa. We’ll live to be 100 if you’d spent one year “away”, so what?

SNJ gives GREAT support if you would choose to go abroad, though at no point do I want to imply that flying across the planet is a must in order to develop open-mindedness, anyone can do that right where there are if only they walk around with open eyes. But, I do want to say that I’d love to see us stop normalizing taking 10hours flights for a two-week holiday: where tourists spend their money determines the direction of development of a country like Nepal, it’s our responsibility to look into what we want to support and what not. For everybody wanting to make their big travels count, take time! Spent some of it working/volunteering and travel before and after, I think you need to teach you lessons about open-mindedness you didn’t even know you needed.

Ain’t nobody coming to give you an anti-ignorance pill, it’s work.

It’s important to take that sometimes uncomfortable first step towards understanding privilege while trying to learn, let’s not be arrogant about it, the real truth is those not as lucky as us feel a much greater uncomfortableness every day of their lives while being discriminated against for reasons one more stupid than the other.

Honestly, I just don’t believe I’m wrong saying that my highschool diploma was 99% circumstances and 1% merit, from the top of my head I can tell you 20 names of young Nepalis I’m 100% certain would have done just as well or better than me if they had my kind of schooling. It’s time we all invest that energy to realize and talk (!!!) about the discrimination and privilege behind everything we do. Every damn thing I achieved was because of the opportunities I had, so how do you expect me to stand here saying I deserve what I have when all I did was say yes to what I was offered?

I loved every single day of school. I gladly took everything in that I found interesting and useful and important and I paid attention. And because I was listening closely I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss the class explaining why today there are both billionaires and starving children, or the class explaining how it is possible that over 5 million people die in Congo wars while all the internationals are just watching, or maybe the class explaining how a Nepali Hospital,(or Yemeni or Pakistani for that sake ) has not even one ventilator for 600 000 people, while we complain that 50 aren’t enough for Luxembourg.

I would’ve needed my teachers to help me understand and find out how I can do my part to fight the injustices that shape our world, but I must conclude that that was never truly valued important enough to be taught in schools?

To today’s teachers, just like many young people I know, I was embarrassed about how uneducated I was/am about how racial injustice persists everywhere. I’m not saying our school system teaches white-supremacy, then again, I’m finding no arguments to clearly prove it doesn’t. To those writing our curriculums: in the age of information ignorance is a choice, teach what’s important!! (Hint: that’s not the french revolution)

Last of all, I want to say I’m very proud to be part of this generation, taking the streets for the Climate and BLM, saying yooooooo it just can’t go on like this.

Volunteering has made me a more disciplined worker, a better climate activist, a more critically-informed citizen, and just a more woke changemaker, to everyone: consider signing up under https://www.volontaires.lu/

In Friendship,

Teddy Smile