N. A.
Group 19
Badakhshan, Afghanistan
فریادی که جهان آن را نمیشنود
این روزها وطنم حال‌وهوای دیگری دارد؛
شبیه بادی که نه می‌توان جلویش را گرفت و نه می‌دانی به کدام سو می‌رود.
اما این باد، روح‌های خسته و بی‌جان دختران سرزمینم را، چون برگ‌های خزان، با خود می‌برد؛
بی‌آن‌که بدانند مقصد کجاست...
درست مانند مسیری که در مه گم شده باشد.
و انگار این هوا دیگر هرگز صاف نخواهد شد...
آینده‌ی این گل‌های پژمرده، همانند همین هوای غبارآلود است؛
پر از ابهام، ناامنی و بی‌سرانجامی.
هرکدام درگیر فردایی مبهم‌اند، فردایی که دیگر رنگ روشنی ندارد.
و از سوی دیگر، ازدواج‌های اجباری در نوجوانی، تنها برای آن‌که مبادا طعمه‌ی طالبان شوند؛
به‌زور و اجبار به نکاح درآورده می‌شوند، در حالی‌که باید در مکتب باشند یا از روزهای ناب نوجوانی‌شان لذت ببرند.
اما نه...
عروسک‌ها از دست‌شان گرفته می‌شود، و به‌جایش نوزادی را در آغوش می‌گیرند که مادرش هنوز خود کودک است.
کودکی که خود نیاز به مراقبت دارد، اما اکنون باید مراقب فرزند نوزادش باشد.
این شده است رسم تلخ و نانوشته‌ی سرزمینم...
این روزها پدران و برادرانی را می‌بینم،
که بودن دختر و خواهر در خانه، برایشان باری‌ست سنگین‌تر از توان؛
باری که هر لحظه به فکرند چگونه آن را از دوش خود بردارند.
اما در دل این تاریکی، صدای دختران افغان هنوز خاموش نشده است؛
صدایی که از پشت دیوارهای بلند محرومیت فریاد می‌زند و از جهانیان کمک می‌خواهد.
دخترانی که با وجود تمام محدودیت‌ها، هنوز قلم در دست دارند و داستان‌های‌شان را روایت می‌کنند؛
به امید آن‌که روزی این بادهای تیره، به نسیم‌هایی روشن و پُرامید بدل شوند.
اما گویی گوش‌های جهان کر شده‌اند...
و اگر هم بشنوند،
آیا روح این گل‌های پژمرده دوباره شکوفا خواهد شد؟
یا همچنان در سایه‌ی غم، پژمرده باقی خواهند ماند؟
A Cry the World Doesn’t Hear
These days, my homeland has taken on a different atmosphere;
like a wind that cannot be stopped and whose direction is unknown.
Yet, this wind carries away the weary and lifeless spirits of the girls of my land, like autumn leaves,
without them knowing where they are headed...
Just like a path lost in the fog.
And it seems this weather will never clear up...
The future of these withered flowers mirrors this hazy air;
full of ambiguity, insecurity, and aimlessness.
Each is entangled in an uncertain tomorrow that no longer holds any brightness.
On one side, deprivation from education and school;
a silent yet burning pain that only they truly understand.
On the other, forced marriages in adolescence,
merely to prevent them from falling prey to the savage and predatory Taliban;
they are compelled into marriage,
while they should be in school or enjoying the precious days of their youth.
But no...
Their dolls are taken away,
and instead, they cradle infants whose mothers are still children themselves.
A child who needs care, yet now must care for her own newborn.
This has become the bitter, unwritten tradition of my homeland...
These days, I see fathers and brothers for whom the presence of daughters and sisters at home feels like a burden heavier than they can bear;
Constantly contemplating how to relieve themselves of this weight.
Yet, amidst this darkness, the voices of Afghan girls remain unquelled;
Voices that cry out from behind towering walls of deprivation, seeking help from the world.
Girls who, despite all limitations, still hold pens and narrate their stories;
Hoping that one day, these dark winds will transform into breezes of hope.
But it seems the world's ears have gone deaf...
And even if they hear,
Will the spirits of these withered flowers bloom once more?
Or will they remain forever in the shadows of sorrow?
Feet that walk unchosen paths
The sound of death draws near. A haunting echo ringing out through the walls of her once-warm home. Her sister’s pale face mirrors the same traumatised girl from the war of 2008, wide, glassy blue eyes trapped in the endless cycle of desperation. Yet, still achingly beautiful, like our sea.
Her body is there but her soul is elsewhere. Her hands tremble as they sift through the fragments of her existence, desperate to hold onto something real, something that might anchor her to the life she is being forced to leave behind. The bag before her is absurdly small, a futile thing. It will never be enough. It can never hold the weight of all she is losing. Each item she touches whispers memories of laughter, of shared secrets, of moments that once felt eternal.
A photo album, pages filled with a younger version of herself. Her school and university certificates, inked proof of years of relentless effort and success, are now meaningless in a world that does not pause for such things. Her clothes, she once cherished, evoke a sense of life coming undone as she bids her final farewell. Her childhood toys. She no longer plays with them, yet their presence keeps the moments of innocence alive in her mind. Candles and notebooks, symbols of hope and light, are now fragile reminders of a girl who believed in a future may never come. Her keepsakes, delicate proof she was loved, she belonged and she had a home. Each item is a piece of the world she once knew but that world is slipping away through her fingers like sand. Like a dream, she can no longer hold onto.
She longs to take it all, to cradle the very essence of her life in her arms so she won’t have to choose what to leave behind. But no matter how tightly she packs the bag, her home, with all its significance and warmth, simply cannot fit! Her heart aches with the realisation that this may be the last time she sees these white cream walls, these rooms where her family laughed, loved, and lived. The last time she breathes the scent of home.
Then comes the hardest decision of all, the one that tears her soul apart. Some will not survive. A cruel heartbreaking truth: who will live and who will be left behind? The thought of leaving her loved ones, uncertain to their fates, is like a blade to her soul.
Tears sting her eyes as she softly whispers to her father, brother, and grandfather: “I hope we meet again.” Unfortunately, hope is fleeting and time does not guarantee kindness.
She turns away, feeling the heaviness of her steps. Each one carries the painful truth of what is being left behind. Not merely a home, but a whole life. Her breath catches as she looks back, seeing her family, their faces etched in sorrow and eyes brimming with unsaid emotions. An ache stretches beyond understanding. A final, silent goodbye.
Under a sky filled with the roar of planes and a land burdened by tragedy; they march. Not for a better future, but for survival. It is an endless journey. A sea of faces marked by fear, exhaustion, and loss. Their fate is unknown. No cloud, no bird, no mercy, just air mourns the lives being torn apart. The road is endless. It’s not just dust, shattered glass, and rubble beneath their feet. It’s history, exile, and suffering repeating in an unforgiven loop. Yet, they walk.
A frail old woman, her back bent like a question mark, crawls on all fours. Once, she carried children in her arms. Now she barely carries the weight of her own survival. A Young man, drenched in sweat, grips the handlebars of a rusted bicycle pulling what remains of his life in tattered bags. An elderly man, his face carved by time and tragedy, walks alone with a wooden cane. His steps are slow bearing the weight of every year since 1948. A woman chokes in her own sobs, her voice breaking into a wail. She blames herself for leaving her only son behind, but how could she have carried him when his body was already cold? A teenage girl, too young for such burdens, too small for such weight, carries her paralyzed mother on her back. She stumbles but doesn’t fall. She sways but doesn’t break. And in her arms, her mother is the luckiest. A small boy struggles beneath the bags far too heavy for his tiny body. His legs tremble. His breath is short. He does not complain. Perhaps he is thinking of a toy he left behind. The one thing that made him feel like a child. And then a baby girl, barely two years old, wails in the chaos. Her clothes, neat, carefully chosen, are clear evidence of a mother who once took pride in dressing her child. But the mother is lost somewhere in the tide of the displaced. And now, the baby cries alone.
The path stretches on, with no end in sight. Their modest possessions hang from their backs. Their hearts overflow with the fear of the unknown. War crushes dreams. It drowns the youth in burdens that are decades beyond their years. This is not new. It happened before. And each time, the pain only deepens.
But against the gloomy sky, a soft glimmer of light breaks free and she feels the sun’s embrace again.
The Kyaka II refugee camp in Uganda stretches before me, a patchwork of mud-brick shelters and tattered tarps baking under a relentless sun. For over five years, I’ve called this crowded place home, alongside thousands of others. The air carries the sharp tang of woodsmoke and the faint sweetness of overripe bananas rotting in the heat. Children’s laughter mixes with the clatter of pots and the low hum of voices, a reminder of life’s stubborn pulse despite the hardship. Dust coats my tongue, kicked up by bare feet shuffling along narrow paths. My skin prickles with sweat, and hunger gnaws at my stomach a constant, dull ache.
Life here has always been a struggle, but we’ve clung to hope. For years, the World Food Programme (WFP) and charities provided food rations sacks of maize and beans and small cash payments. It was never enough, but we stretched every grain and shilling. Now, the ground has shifted beneath us. The Trump administration’s funding cuts have slashed aid, halting food deliveries, healthcare, and support from the UNHCR and its partners. The camp, once alive with cautious dreams, now hums with fear.
I stand near the local market, where women in bright headscarves barter for wilted greens. "How much for the tomatoes?" a mother asks, her voice sharp with desperation. The vendor, an older man with sunken cheeks, shakes his head. "Too costly now. No aid, no cheap food." Their words hang heavy, like the dust settling on my worn sandals. Hunger bites harder, and we all whisper the same question:
How will we survive ?
When I first arrived, the government gave us tiny plots of land barely enough to build a shelter, let alone grow food. A few years ago, some refugees received larger plots to farm, coaxing maize and cassava from the stubborn soil. I remember the pride in my neighbor Mariam ’s eyes as she showed me her first harvest, her calloused hands cradling a small basket of greens. "This is ours," she said, her smile wide. But those days are gone. Conflicts in nearby countries have swelled the camp with new arrivals, and land is scarce. The dream of feeding ourselves feels as distant as the cool morning mist that vanishes by noon.
Yet, in the face of these growing challenges, we’ve found ways to hold each other up. Under the shade of a gnarled mango tree, our savings group gathers. Ten of us sit in a circle, the ground hard beneath our thin mats . We used to pool small sums often from WFP’s cash aid to help with emergencies or start tiny businesses. Rehema, our group’s leader, clutches an empty tin that once held our savings. "We have nothing left," she says, her voice steady but her eyes glistening. "But we still have each other," I nod, my fingers tracing the frayed edge of my skirt. These groups were our lifeline, proof of our ingenuity. Without cash aid, we can’t contribute, but we refuse to let the circle break.
Action hums around us, even in despair. Across the clearing, a young man named James weaves baskets from dried grass, his fingers quick despite the heat. "I’ll sell these in our nearest town," he tells me, his voice firm. "It’s not much, but it’s something." Nearby, children chase a makeshift ball of rags, their giggles piercing the heavy air. Their energy sparks a flicker of hope in my chest.
Older refugees, who arrived when land was plentiful, share stories of better times. At dusk, I sit with Baba Iradukunda, his face etched with lines like the cracked earth. He leans on a stick, his voice low. "We grew sorghum, enough to eat and sell," he says, staring at the horizon where the sun bleeds orange. "You young ones, you’ll find a way too." His words sting, a reminder of what we’ve lost, but they also kindle resolve. We’ve survived before, and this new challenge won’t break us.
We stand at a crossroads. Without land, money, or aid, the future looks as barren as the overworked soil. Yet, in our shared struggle, we find strength. Our savings group still meets, even if the tin stays empty. We talk of businesses perhaps weaving , like Joseph, or trading small goods. We dream of crops that could one day green these plots again. Kyaka II refugee camp isn’t just a place of suffering it’s a testament to our will to endure. The road ahead is shadowed, but as I watch the camp settle under a starlit sky, I feel it: We’ll survive.
The Journey That Never Ends
A woman walks. But the story walks behind her.
In the photo, a woman is walking.
It’s a simple sentence.
But it does not tell the whole truth.
Behind her feet, shadows stretch farther than light.
On her head, a pink plastic box — the kind you'd see in a child’s room — balances with quiet precision.
But inside it?
Not toys.
What it carries is what's left after life has been shaken, sifted, reduced to the most survivable parts.
This isn’t the first time she’s walked like this.
It won't be the last.
She walks, not with urgency or peace, but with a rhythm people in Gaza know by heart:
One step forward, one step remembering.
As if every road requires you to move and mourn at the same time.
The box is small, absurdly cheerful.
Once filled with stickers, toy rings, maybe a notebook of childhood dreams.
Now, it holds a folded mattress, a tin kettle, and a pillow heavy with the scent of cumin and concrete.
This is what the camera shows.
But it does not show what she had to leave behind.
The coffee cup half full.
The shirt still drying on a nail.
The window that once framed the face of someone waiting.
What you don’t see:
It wasn’t just things she left.
It was a version of herself that believed in staying.
Her daughters walk behind her.
One of them, small and wide-eyed, tugs at her sleeve and whispers,
"Are we going back… or leaving again?"
"When are we going home?"
The mother doesn’t answer.
Not because she doesn’t know — but because every possible answer has already betrayed her.
The road is full of the displaced, but no one calls out.
The silence is thick, filled with metal basins, fluttering scarves, and the dragging of shoes across tired ground.
She’s done this before.
The stones remember her footsteps.
That corner? They slept near it two weeks ago.
That tree? It once gave them shade before it burned.
Displacement in Gaza isn’t marked by borders.
It’s mapped in repetition.
The world often sees images like this and calls it "a moment of crisis."
But this woman does not live in moments.
She lives in loops.
Every time she walks, she takes less.
Not by choice, but by loss.
The photo doesn’t show her prayers.
How she paused before leaving to fold a shirt with her son’s name on it.
Or how she tucked a plastic spoon into the bag, not because she needed it, but because it was still clean — untouched by ruin.
The camera does not hear the voice inside her asking:
"How many times can a person carry their home on their head before they forget where it was?"
What lies behind the photo is weight.
Not the physical kind — but the kind that reshapes the spine.
The kind that teaches the neck to carry not just boxes, but memory.
There is a violence in this kind of leaving.
Packing without destination.
Walking without guarantee.
Folding grief into plastic and calling it luggage.
And still… she walks.
Not to escape.
Not to arrive.
Just to keep moving.
Because in Gaza, survival isn’t about running.
It’s about remaining in motion —
so grief doesn’t settle.
So memory doesn’t harden.
So hope doesn’t die where it stood.
She does not look back.
Not because she is strong, but because there is nothing left to turn toward.
Only the dust of what could have been.
In the end, she is not seeking safety.
She is seeking pause.
A day where no one asks her to pack.
A night where no one pounds on the door.
A morning where her children wake and don’t ask:
"Where are we going next?"
The photo says she is walking.
But what it doesn’t say is:
She’s been walking for years.
TRIGGER WARNING: Loss of a loved one by suicide.
I Light Candles
They buried Pope Francis today and I wailed in sorrow, curled up on the sofa with a fleece blanket over me for comfort, and a hot tea.
The wall-to-wall live funeral coverage was on BBC from breakfast time. I observed as the world’s dignitaries gathered. There was Trump looking very Trump-like. In a sea of funeral black, he wore a navy suit.
‘Ugh’, I grunted in disgust and sighed as he was led to his seat in the front row. They put him next to Macron. Melania was wearing a lace mourning veil as were quite a few of the first ladies present. I thought how delicate and timeless the lace veils were and in my mind’s eye I saw Jacqueline Kennedy at the funeral of JFK. Melania is no Jackie Kennedy, I thought to myself. There goes Zelensky now, I muttered to anyone listening. Is he wearing a suit? I had to look closer. In fact, he was continuing his tradition of dressing in military style, in solidarity with his soldiers fighting a war but his attire was all black, head to toe as per protocol. He was also given a seat in the front row but at the far end of Trump. I wondered who drew up the seating plan and what it all represented in international politics. Neither Netanyahu nor Putin made an appearance, naturally. There’s our own President Higgins now, I mumbled to the kids, or the dogs or anyone listening. The funeral coverage was the background to my morning, but I was also unloading the dishwasher, hanging clothes out to dry, pottering about the kitchen and planning the day ahead.
Soon after, when the house emptied out, I sat down alone and turned up the volume to hear the commentators and suddenly I was sobbing, my shoulders heaving as the tears flowed and I wailed and wept and whimpered. An onlooker would have assumed I was the most devout Catholic in Ireland, but it wasn’t the pope I cried for but for you, my sweet sister.
The Litany of Saints was chanted in Latin by the college of Cardinals, hypnotically.
They prayed for you too. I implored on them to include you.
‘Santa Maria, Ora Pro Nobis
Santa Catharina, Ora Pro Nobis
Santa Rosa de Lima, Ora Pro Nobis’
Instinctively I chose the female Saints and tonight, that meditative, celestial chant still rings in my head. How could it not evoke emotions and allow tears to break free? Is chanting not designed to lift us from the monotony of our day-to-day lives, the dishes, the bills, the shopping list, and coax us to stop and look up towards the heavens? Would I glimpse you if I looked up, or hear your laugh, your voice, just one last time. What I would give.
I wished I could smell the burning incense through the TV screen as the cardinal waved the silver thurible over the simple wooden coffin and smoke wafted through St Pater’s Square. The smell of frankincense is comforting to me.
I recalled you brought back frankincense in raw, resin form from your travels. Was it from Oman you carried it home? After that trip to study Arabic, ‘It’s the best place to study Modern Standard Arabic’ you told everyone at the time. You always loved musky smells, never choosing a floral perfume, you preferred woody, spicy fragrances like frankincense instead.
In the homily, the cardinal reminded us how Francis had pleaded with the world to ‘build bridges not walls’, how he held a deep affinity with migrants and refugees, how he visited Lampedusa in Italy and Lesvos in Greece to meet many in person, most of them Syrians fleeing the war. I suddenly had an image of a three-year-old boy, washed up on the shores of the Mediterranean, lying face down in the surf. He looked like a doll that had been discarded after playtime. His name was Alan Kurdi and you and I were outraged. We texted each other; we forwarded each other articles, we signed petitions. We praised Mutti - Angela Merkle - who welcomed a million Syrians to Germany and you, based in Brussels were despondent about the rest of Europe’s paltry response to the plight of those same refugees.
I remember your plans to travel to Greece to volunteer, plans you fleshed out with me over numerous phone calls. I wish we had upped and gone there together but I had my humdrum life to attend to. Instead, you took a sabbatical leave from work and went to Lebanon to teach Syrian refugee children. You loved your students, and I have no doubt, they loved you too, their blue-eyed teacher. Are they all still alive today? Do they know you are not?
In the homily, they prayed too for Gaza and my tears flowed freely. I have not even told you fully what has happened in Gaza. It would have broken your heart, your spirit. It is my one tiny solace, that you have not had to witness a genocide in real time, played out on your tv, your laptop, your phone. You wore the Keffiyeh scarf since your student days. I am consoled you have been spared the agony of seeing Palestine decimated and her children killed, maimed and starved as the world stood by. The weight would have crushed you.
Pope Francis phoned the small catholic parish in Gaza every night for the past 18 months. I saw the footage of his call made on Easter Sunday at 8pm Gaza time, 7pm in Rome.
‘As-Salamu Alaikum’ he said. Like you, he learned some Arabic, knowing the respect it shows to speak to someone in their own language. He asked them each day if they had eaten, if they had food. He bid goodbye to the priests in Gaza last Easter Sunday. ‘A Domani’ they replied in chorus. Earlier he had given his Easter blessing from the balcony and taken an unscheduled trip around St Peter’s Square in the popemobile greeting his flock in person.
Finally, that evening he thanked his loyal nurse Massimilano Strappetti for bringing him home to the square that he loved so much and those were his last words. A gentle polite Thank You.
A pope of the people who was principled. He helped the poor; he helped migrants, and he prayed for peace in Gaza and the world. He was like you, and you embodied him. And today I wailed for you both and for the good that has left this world, at a time when we need it the most.
When the mass was over, a small group of homeless Romans and some refugees were the last to greet his coffin in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore where he was to be entombed. I waited to watch but then understood that of course that final humble goodbye was private, just as it should.
I have dreamed of visiting Rome for many years. Did you visit?
I plan to be there for my birthday next year, my fiftieth. I promised myself this some time ago and I know now I have something new to add to my itinerary, to visit the church of Santa Maria Maggiore and to sit below the gilded gold icon of the virgin Mary, to light a candle for you and one for Pope Francis and to allow myself to honour those who were good in this world, you, my dear baby sister, and this pope, Pope Francis.
For that is what I do since you left this world, I light candles in churches wherever I go. I choose the most beautiful church wherever I am in the world, and I light a candle for you to imagine for a moment that you are there with me and I sit quietly to feel your presence. I light a candle and place it on the mantlepiece each Sunday at home for you too and I know I will do this for the rest of my life. I usually speak a few words to you too, an update on your nieces and nephews whom you loved as if they were your own. Does this mean this lapsed Catholic has found her faith or that the loss of you is so great I clutch at anything to ease the pain?
You smuggled a miniature baby Jesus of Prague out of the psychiatric ward hidden in a box of Olanzapine. You did not feel comfortable displaying a religious ornament when you got home. I found it after you were gone. I display it in my home now, next to a framed photo of you. The baby Jesus is painted teal, and the large crown is gold and as far as ceramic devotional objects go, it is very beautiful. The hospital notes show that you called for a priest to speak with. Was the pain and mental anguish so acute that you clutched at faith? Or did you have an awaking of your faith but not wish to discuss it with us for fear of judgement in this godless world? Did the priest listen kindly? Where society failed you, please say he did not fail you too.
Was the judgement you felt so harsh you lost hope?
Was the judgement you felt so harsh you lost your words?
Was the judgement you felt so harsh you never disclosed your diagnosis with us?
Was the judgement you felt so harsh that you took your life?
Maybe in fact, I light candles to seek atonement.
In memory of Éabha Rosenstock, 3rd June 1983 - 27th March 2022
The Months We Fed on Memory: November 2023 – April 2024
"You used to laugh here," she tells the mirror. "Spin in front of it. Fight over scarves, remember?”
Now, the girl it shows is pale and fragile, her body folding in on itself. She barely recognizes the one staring back. The mirror is cracked, but not nearly as shattered as she is. The reflection blurs – hollow cheeks, eyes sunken like dried wells, hair falling out in quiet handfuls. Her collarbones jut out like wings trying to break free from a body too weak to fly. She touches them and flinches.
Once, she used to stand before the mirror for hours. “Do you think this scarf matches better with the blue or the white?” she’d ask her sister, twirling. Now, she avoids her reflection. When she does glance, she only sees a stranger. An outline of the girl who used to smile. Hunger has settled into her bones, not as a pang but as a presence – steady, cruel. It whispers behind her ribs, slows her thoughts, bends her knees. Even standing feels like defiance.
"Did we eat yesterday?" she once asked her mother. Her mother didn’t answer. She just handed her a spoon of rice – cold, hard, sacred. She chews slowly, trying to trick time into thinking there's more. But hunger is never fooled. It lingers. It howls.
Before, food meant joy.
“I made your favorite,” her mother would call out, her hands busy with the rhythm of cooking. Garlic sizzling in olive oil. Molokhia bubbling in the pot. Rice and chicken steaming. Her sisters dancing around the kitchen like the smell itself was music. “Don’t eat yet!” her sister would giggle, “Let me take a photo.” Their table was a stage – where love performed in colorful dishes, bright salads shimmered like hope, and bread was passed like family stories, warm and endless. Joy wasn’t just tasted, it was shared, served in every bite.
Now, that same table is dust and ash. Joy? A weight too heavy for the heart to lift. A bite of cheese is a rare celebration. A piece of chocolate – unthinkable, like forbidden magic whispered from a lost world. Now, meals are survival. A thin, watery soup made from kubaizah, the wild mallow leaves she gathers from cracks in the pavement, growing stubbornly between rubble and ruins. Her fingers bleed sometimes from the search, but still she picks them – green scraps of hope in a starved land.
Bitter bread, ground from animals feed, smells like the inside of a chicken coop. Her mother tries to smile as she stirs it. “It’s warm,” she says. But warmth isn’t enough. She remembers bread, real bread, puffing up in the oven, golden and fragrant. She would dip it in oil, sprinkle za’atar, close her eyes and hum with the taste. Now, she gnaws on stale crusts that crack like bones in her mouth. They chew in silence, pretending. Pretending it fills them. Pretending it’s food. Pretending this life is not slowly unravelling them, bite by bitter bite.
The transformation isn’t hers alone – it has settled over her land like dust, soft but suffocating. It clings to every wall, every breath, every bowl left empty on a kitchen floor.
Once, her land was full – of color, of scent, of sound. Markets overflowed with figs and tomatoes, bread warm under linen cloth, children laughing with crumbs on their lips. The air smelled of citrus and sea salt. Light fell gently between buildings, golden and familiar.
Now, it is a map of ribs and ruins.
The north hungers in silence. The south chews slowly, fearful of running out. And in the middle—her Gaza—there is only the ache between heartbeats. She walks past trees she once picked fruit from, now torn from the earth like secrets exposed. The soil no longer feels like home – it’s coarse, bitter, and tired.
Fields curl into themselves, brittle as paper. No green left. Only grey.
Even the birds are quieter. Their songs have grown shy, like they know it’s wrong to sing over this kind of grief.
At night, she closes her eyes and hears not dreams, but the creak of hunger in the bones of her city. And she knows: This isn’t just survival. It’s mourning – drawn out, breath by breath, shared by every soul still standing.
The old lie still breathes here – not in words, but in bellies bloated with nothing. Skin stretched too tight, ribs like shadows beneath it. It hums in the silence between spoonful of nothing and the air that tastes like ash. “They’re surviving … quietly.”
Children wait in crooked lines that never seem to move. They hold cracked bowls like offerings, their hands shaking – tender twigs in winter wind. Their eyes are too deep, too tired, too old. Grief lives there, not as a storm, but a stillness – the kind that settles in bones and never leaves.
Men wander like ghosts through the ruins. The sun peels their skin, the hunger folds their backs. They carry plastic sacks streaked in blood. Quiet testimony to those who were just a few steps behind.
She saw a girl once – small, barefoot, her plastic bag swinging with the weight of hope. She fell before the bread arrived. Her hope was heavier than her body. A woman nearby dropped to the ground. Her body folding like a fallen petal. Just outside the bakery, where the scent of warmth used to live. Now, it’s only memory. Faint, unreachable, cruel.
No ambulance came.
No sirens sang.
Only the kind of silence that wraps around your lungs, and tightens. Until even breath feels like a betrayal. Her city inhales pain, exhales despair. Cold fingers curl around every heart, every breath, every fragile hope – tightening with each passing moment.
She’s seen the aid fall. Parachutes drifting down like insults. Boxes crashing into the dirt before her ashen home. Not gifts – scraps tossed to starving animals. The world claps for the cameras. But she hears the screams.
One man stabbed for beans. Another crushed beneath a sack. Her brothers dove into the sea for food drowned in salt.
Once, a package landed on a shattered roof nearby. Feet thundered. Walls cracked. Voices roared “Mine! It’s mine!” She stood frozen, imagining it was her house. If the weight hadn’t crushed it, the crowd might have. She thanked God the children who lived there were gone. Gone before they learned how hunger strips even mercy.
Still, her brothers go!
Because hunger doesn't knock. It storms the gates.
“They said there’s food at Al-Nabulsi!” someone yells. She hears the name and flinches. Once, Al-Nabulsi meant something else. It meant the sea breeze curling through the open doors of seaside cafés, the scent of cardamom wafting from coffee cups, and the laughter of friends gathered in chalets. It was one of her city’s most beautiful corners – where the sunset dipped into the waves like a blessing.
Now, it means massacre. Now, it means you might never come back.
Beauty turned battlefield. Life turned bait.
Still, the sea glistens there. Still, her brothers go!
Every time, she places her hands on their shoulders like sealing them in prayer. “Come back safe,” she whispers. They nod, wearing that same half-smile – brave, bitter, and broken – because war teaches you to lie with your eyes. Her brothers run the gauntlet: slipping past tanks, ducking sniper fire, evading quadcopters that hum like metal wasps. Sometimes they come back with nothing. Sometimes with tears. Always with silence.
But on the eighth of March 2024, one returned with a sack of white wheat, clinging to his back like salvation. He had carried it from the jaws of Al-Kuwaiti roundabout. It was a kind of victory. But wheat alone cannot feed a family. They needed oil. Cheese. Even salt.
And then, on another day, her brother staggered home. His sleeves were soaked in blood. She rushed to him, heart clenched. “Is it yours?” He shook his head. “No … he was holding the aid box, smiling. A second later, the truck crushed him. I saw his body split beneath it.” That day, their mother made stew with what little he carried. The smell of rice clung to the air like grief. They could not taste survival.
Each time her brothers leave, fear nests inside her. Sleep deserts her. Her mind spirals into graves: Will they return walking, or be carried? She reads Quran through the night, voice breaking, tying her brothers’ names to verses, to sky, to hope.
And once more, not long after, a brother came home bloodied again. “It’s not mine,” he said. He had helped carry the dead – men crushed beside the food they longed to eat. One lay with a can of beans beneath his broken leg. He opened his eyes. “Please,” he whispered, voice barely a thread. Her brother hesitated, then reached down and took the can, its metal slick with the man’s blood. “We must live,” he said, though the words felt like glass in his mouth. That night, her mother made stew. But she couldn’t eat it. White beans are bitter now. Forever.
Still, they chase the trucks. Still, her brothers go!
Because even death is easier to face than watching your family starve.
Even kindness comes bitter now. Charity boxes are tossed like trash. Expired cans handed out with sneers. Her father once stood for hours in the cold, only to return in tears. “They kicked us,” he said, voice low. “He yelled at me … like I wasn’t human.” The door slammed in his face before he could speak.
Hunger doesn’t only gnaw at the stomach. It eats through pride, through peace. It makes mothers surrender their last mouthfuls. It makes brothers fight over a single spoon. It makes silence sit heavy around the dinner mat, where no one dares ask, “Is there more?”
Even water has turned against them. No longer a blessing, but a bitter drop of rust and sickness. One cup a day, if they’re lucky. Murky, like forgotten pipes, carrying the scent of mold and metal. She brings it to her lips and winces. It tastes like war. Old, wrong, and heavy.
“I miss the sound of the faucet,” she whispered once, voice barely more than breath. Her younger brother, sixteen now, nodded. He knows what a faucet is, but he’s forgotten how it sounded when clean water flowed freely. To him, water is not comfort or abundance. It’s a burden strapped to the back, gathered from far places, always heavy, always never enough. It’s not just rare now – it’s cruel. It drips from broken barrels, pools in buckets that once held paint – or worse. It clings to the tongue like the taste of rusted nails.
Still, they drink. They must.
They drink knowing their stomachs will turn. Knowing fever might follow. Knowing this water does not heal - it punishes. But thirst chokes faster than fear. It steals strength from the bones, from breath, from the small glimmer behind a child’s eyes. Sometimes, she dreams of water. Not the kind they drink now, but the cold, clear kind. Spilling over her palms. Dripping from a faucet. Tapping softly like rain on glass. She wakes with a dry mouth, and the taste of the memory bitter on her tongue.
But some days hold miracles - when hope sneaks in quietly, smuggled in the back of a truck, wrapped in bruised skins and fragile scents.
April 2024.
Her father returned with three apples. Small. Imperfect. Cradled in his hands like treasures rescued from a dream. They cost what twenty kilos once did. Still, he carried them like light.
“I bought them,” he said, voice cracking under the weight of meaning. He didn’t slice them into thin pieces. He halved them - three apples, six halves. Enough for each of them to hold something rare and real. She pressed hers to her cheek before tasting. It was soft, slightly warm. It tasted of forgotten Fridays. Of sunrise. Of what it once meant to live freely.
“It tastes like freedom,” she whispered through tears.
The hunger remained. But so did the memory.
Not all offerings come from home. Once, a neighbor handed them a plastic bag - light in weight, heavy with meaning. Inside: one tomato, one cucumber, one lone green chili. They placed it on the table and stared in silence. Something so small had become sacred.
“Let’s take a photo,” someone said, half-laughing. And they did. Then ate slowly. Tasting what once was ordinary - now felt like celebration.
Their table is bare. Yet around it, they gather - still human, still whole in spirit.
Anonymous
Participant in Creative Writing for Social Change
Germany
TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual abuse
Iceland: Cold, Dark and Empty. Nour is yet to meet another lost soul on earth that would describe Iceland as cold, dark and empty. Acquaintances around her would rather use exotic, unspoilt and mystical. She would respond with, “Of course I’ve been to the Blue Lagoon. It was packed with people.”
She suppressed the coldness and darkness and emptiness of Iceland so she could fit into the conversation and not expose herself. The empty streets of Iceland remind her of running into a dark and cold black hole. Running and panting from terror.
Iceland to her was a greedy, hungry, ravenous man. A man that wanted to inhale her youth, destroy her soul, and steal her innocence. A cold, dark and empty black hole.
And it happened. Her soul left her body. Two different entities. Not aware of the surroundings. What remained with her was her cold, dark and empty soul. She could still smell her own blood and feel the cold shower her body took for her.
The sound of the ringing phone felt like white noise for her soul. Suddenly, Nour was shocked that she heard his voice on the other end of the line. She was frightened and shaking. Partly because she relived what had happened in Iceland, but mostly because she had to get back to reality. She had to get back to Madrid, where she currently resides, and force any WORDS out of those lips: “I got an STD, and I think it was because of you.”
“Because of me? No Nour, I am clean. Maybe it was one of the other men that you have been fooling around with. I am clean.”
“There were no other men!” Nour snapped and realized she would have to go into the operation room alone and lie to everyone around her that she was getting operated on because of something completely unrelated. She did not even get a chance to think about what had happened and how he had forced himself on her. Cold, dark and empty. She paused and wanted to scream in his face but gathered her thoughts and repeated while sobbing: “There were no other men!”
“Can’t you see that you’re a pathetic liar? I have nothing to do with this whole drama of yours. It is simply not my problem. I don’t have this STD. I am clean.”
His harsh voice made her feel like she was dirty and unworthy. She dropped her phone and stared into her dorm room. That was the moment she realised she had to do this on her own. Intrusive thoughts entered her mind for a second time. She relived what had happened a few months ago, felt her soul, once again, leave her body, and surrendered to gravity.
The sky feels distant, filled with the souls of children who have departed to another world, while their bodies remain trapped beneath the rubble, too difficult to retrieve amid the harshness of these days—days that weigh heavily on our hearts.
The streets are still filled with bodies. Even the animals that once sought refuge in the alleyways have died, unable to survive the hunger and thirst. The scent of black dust and rockets lingers in the air, mixing with the smell of bread baked over firewood—an effort to prepare food for the children due to the lack of fuel.
Every morning, children rush to search for tree branches to use for light and warmth, though the trees themselves are disappearing. They have become our last resource, the only thing we rely on after all other comforts have abandoned us. I hear the sound of dabke [traditional Arab dancing] echoing through the alleys—an attempt by a group to bring joy to the children, replacing the toys they lost.
Nearby, I see a tent where a teacher has gathered a group of children from the shelters, teaching them on the ground. His voice rises as he says, "Read, my son..." The children try to focus, though at the same time, they eagerly wait for him to dismiss them so they can run off and join the dabke dance—something far more joyful, something that requires no concentration.
But suddenly, a woman's scream: "My son was martyred at the Rafah border!" He had gone to check on their house, but he was met by tanks still stationed along the Philadelphi Corridor.
The neighbours rushed to comfort her, even though they were on their way to attend a wedding in the camp. A young bride had prepared for a simple ceremony, and the children had been eagerly waiting to see her Palestinian dress and taste the sweets they had longed for since the war began. In another corner, elderly men sit in the street, listening to the news on an old radio, waiting for the war to end. And there, in a small café, a group of students gathers—not for leisure, but to find an internet connection so they can download their lectures and meet the deadlines set by their professors.....
N. A.
Group 19
Badakhshan, Afghanistan
On a Rainy Day
It was one of those rainy days when raindrops fell from the sky like the tears of a girl silently pouring from her eyes. Dressed in my hijab, I was heading to work—despite the decree forbidding women from working. Though fear had overtaken every inch of my being, I tried to appear strong and walked on with even more determination.
Along the way, a white taxi stopped beside me. The driver rolled down the window and asked, “Sister, where are you headed?”
Soaked from the rain, I quickly got in. My heart was heavy with worry—not just because I was wet and cold, but because of the uncertainty about my future. I was deeply concerned that I would no longer be allowed to work outside the home.
Suddenly, the driver turned to another passenger in the car, his face lit up with joy, and said, “What could be better? It’s good that girls’ schools are closed now and women no longer go out to study or work.”
His words made my body tremble with anger. I clenched my jaw so tightly it hurt, but I restrained myself. I didn’t want to say anything that could provoke him. But curiosity got the better of me, and I asked, “Uncle, what exactly is so joyful about such decrees that makes you so happy?”
His expression darkened, his face contorted with visible anger. He snapped, “It’s good for girls! They don’t go to school anymore. Now they’ll learn how to cook and manage the house properly.”
Hearing such backward thinking from someone who could be a father, a brother, or a husband left me heartbroken and disillusioned. How could he hold such a humiliating view of women—especially when the women and girls of this land are bleeding, some even falling into deep mental trauma?
Though boiling with rage inside, I forced a fake smile and responded sarcastically, “I can’t believe someone who might be a father, brother, or husband could think this way about the women and girls of his own country. So, by your logic, does that mean you used to do all the housework yourself before? Is that why you seem so pleased now?”
He looked visibly irritated and responded firmly, “No, they did the housework before too—but not from the heart. Now that they’re home, they’ll do it with passion and from deep inside. And it’s better they learn some professional skills at home, too.”
Feeling that I had made my point, I got out of the car. I slammed the door shut in frustration and walked away without even looking back.
Just a few steps from my office, I found myself lost in thought. The driver’s words echoed in my mind—I had no idea when or how I entered the office. I was completely distracted and couldn’t concentrate. What saddened me even more was realizing how many men in my country were not only unbothered by these restrictions placed on women, but were celebrating them. They remained silent—like a calm river that flows quietly, taking everything in its path, yet never making a sound.
A Mind Unfed.
There are kinds of hunger the body doesn’t cry for. Not the growl in the stomach or the thirst that cracks the lips - but a quieter starvation, one that hollows the soul.
She could survive the absence of sugar, even salt. She could sip the rationed water slowly, one cautious gulp at a time, feeling it slide like glass down her dry throat. She could chew on lentils and flattened bread, pretending they were something else - her mother’s maklouba, rich with spices and warmth, the taste of home. She could even endure the darkness when the power died, again and again, clutching her phone like a final thread of light, waiting for a bar of signal, a blink of life.
But there was another ache no aid parcel could fill.
She missed the rustle of pages. The scent of printed paper - faint ink, dust, memory. She longed for the paper and ink world she once inhabited. Her books, her journals, her notebooks with ink-smudged lines and half-written thoughts. All gone with the fire that consumed her home. The smell of burning paper still clung to her memory, sharper than smoke. Her sanctuary, now only ash. Even her thoughts had begun to fade. Everything in her mind was blurry, as if coated in dust. Names of authors she once loved floated out of reach. Lines of poetry that used to live on her lips now felt like foreign language. She tried to write again, to let the words crawl from her mind onto scraps of paper, but inspiration had dried out. She missed words that weren’t headlines or warnings. She missed the kind of silence that only existed in a library - alive, breathing, sacred.
She longed for the weight of a book in her hand, for the scratch of her favorite pen underlining a line that struck her like lightning. For sticky notes that once bloomed like petals in the margins. But e-books never felt the same to her. Their glow hurt her eyes, their silence lacked scent. A real book had weight, texture, a smell that aged like memories. It was a companion. A comfort. A mirror. She wandered the marketplace, searching for English novels like a child looking for a lost friend. Her voice would rise, hopeful, “Do you have books?” And the answer came, flat and cold, “Buy wood instead. Books won’t warm your hands at night.”
How do you explain to someone that warmth can come from within a page?
No one seemed to understand. No one cared that she had once been a reader, an aspiring writer, a teacher. That she used to circle words with awe, teach metaphors with joy, and dive into the minds of characters as if they were her kin. The ash from the fires wasn’t just from burnt pages, but from a life once lit by learning. Now, even the books were being sacrificed - used as kindling for pots of rice and lentils.
Still, she clung to hope. Her university - that beloved place where she had spent hours reading under the sunlit windows, traveling through pages to distant lands - must still be standing. So she walked. The path from home to the university, once short and familiar, now felt endless. Rubble crumbled under her feet, but she didn’t notice. She was too busy imagining the shelves waiting for her.
But when she arrived, the illusion broke.
Entrance to the university.
Her university was now a shelter. No clean halls. No lecture echoes. No scent of coffee drifting from the cafeteria. Instead, clothes hung from windows like silent flags, children stood in lines with empty bottles, and the air reeked of rot and desperation. Weary faces looked up from concrete floors.
Lecture halls.
Still, her feet remembered the way. They led her to the library.
She saw Hebrew graffiti staining the walls, bullet holes sketching violent stories, and iron panels sealing off her sanctuary. She tried another route - still blocked. Still, she refused to give up.
In a nearby room, where displaced staff now gathered, she spoke. “I’m a graduate of this university. Please, let me borrow a book!”
The men exchanged glances. One finally said, “The librarian isn’t here. Maybe in two hours. Maybe tomorrow.”
She waited. An hour passed. No one came. She wandered through every corridor and alley of the building, searching for her past. But she couldn’t reach the floor where her mind once bloomed.
Would she still find her favorite novels on the same shelves? Would she remember which book she wanted to borrow first? She didn’t know. She only knew that the librarian never came.
The next day, she returned, her heart wrapped in resolve. She waited again on the stairs.
A voice behind her said, “I heard you were looking for me.”
“Yes,” she said. “I want to go to the library. They wouldn’t let me yesterday.”
“You can’t,” he answered, his voice low. “It’s hard to see.”
“Why? What happened?”
“They burned it. Not a single book survived. That floor… it’s dark and broken. Better you don’t go there.”
She nodded slowly, her voice steady: “I’ve mastered burned places. My home. My room. My journals. My books. I can bear it.”
“It’s different,” he said. “Even for me, and I wasn’t as connected to it as you. But here… here are a few books we saved from a professor’s office. Before people used them to cook.”
He handed her a pile. Torn chapters. Water-damaged covers. Nothing in English. Only a bilingual Arabic-English dictionary.
“Take it. It’s yours.”
It felt like a slap. A dictionary - a book of words, but no stories.
She left the building like a ghost. Her heart pulled her to the garden behind the university, where she once sat between lectures under green trees. But even that had vanished. No grass. No shade. Only broken branches, and piles of sand. Like her.
Ash and silence.
She stood there for a long time, holding the dictionary like it might still open a door. But the only thing that opened was the wound.
She was starving.
And no one could see it.
Her hunger wasn’t for bread.
It was for books.
For meaning.
For memory.
Cotton Guts
She knows how to tell the story. She’s told it so many times it lives in her bones now. She knows to smile when she steps on stage. Nod when they introduce her. Pause for dramatic effect.
Her fingers are still shaking as she makes her entrance.
There was a time she could switch it off. The jitters, the nerves, the noise. She would disappear into the ritual. Into the realm of pretty stories. She’d will her fingers to be steady, her voice to be loud, her spine to be straight. Every piece of her a perfect picture of calm.
But lately, the switch doesn’t flip. The picture won’t hold.
Now she feels everything. The sting of her chapped lips. The tight ball of her sternum. The hangnail she bit until it bled last night.
She hears herself introduced. But the polished speaker bio sounds hollow to her. Like trying to read time in a dream. Her eyes burn. Her sinuses pulse.
And for some reason, she remembers her baby cousin wrestling his white teddy bear on a mattress in the living room of her childhood home. The two-bedroom apartment too small for all the children sleeping over. The bear’s belly was split, its insides spilling out in little white tufts. Tufts she’d push away at night, spiky and irritating against her skin. The bear looked fine, until you leaned in. White-on-white, the damage was almost invisible.
And then she hears herself speak.
There’s a hiccup in her voice, but she recovers. She always does.
She talks about adversity and ambition. Ambition and opportunity. Opportunity and triumph.
She declares: Every day is an opportunity. To become who you were always meant to be. To let go of limitations and distortions. To be your best self.
But her throat is tight. Her left breast burns. She can smell his breath.
She thinks of Persian rugs.
The audience laughs at the right parts. They nod when she thanks her professors. Her mentors. Her father. She doesn’t say that he calls her the light of his life. Or that she’s terrified of that light going out.
She doesn’t say that most nights, she stands in front of her bathroom mirror and pulls at her hair until the scalp throbs. That it’s the only time she feels real. That sometimes pain is the only proof that she exists at all.
She says: Every day is an opportunity.
But the truth is this:
Every day is a ritual.
A ceremony of holding it together.
Of painting pain in triumph.
Of smelling fire and pretending it’s rain.
She is pristine and cracking.
Stitched with secrets.
A teddy bear with cotton guts, smiling in a child’s arms, midair, as it’s slammed down on a mattress.
And somewhere in her insides, a truth is spilling out.
She clicks join call. Her dad’s face shows up on screen. Just a little bit too close to the camera. He’s trimmed his beard. And she can see the edge of a collared shirt at the bottom of the screen. His wife’s choice, she’s sure.
It’s Eid, so they do what they always do.
“Eid Mubarak, Dad.”
“Kul ‘am w inti bkhair, habibti. How’s work? How are things?”
She recites the usual spiel.
Work is busy. She’s tired, but managing. All good.
He’s quiet for a beat. Scanning her face.
She notices the wrinkles on his cheeks.
He lingers on the dark circles under her eyes.
Then, tentative:
“I want to know you, Bayan. I feel like I don’t. Your life. The details of it. Even your apartment. I know you say you’re okay, but I wanna know how. How are you managing over there? What are your days like?”
She freezes.
Stops herself from rolling her eyes.
Her chest gets heavy with that familiar weight of having to convince him that she’s just fine.
What does he know? Why now? Why is he picking at me like this?
Her fingers twitch to scratch at her scalp.
“I’m fine,” she reassures. Her tone is off. Too flat. “You don’t have to worry.”
“But I am worried,” he raises his voice. Just a little bit. But her shoulders still tense, bracing. “I can see you’re not ok, Bayan. Just talk to me. Let me be with you. Why are you so stubborn about doing this alone?”
Her response is frayed.
“Because I’ve always done it alone.”
That comes out harsher than intended.
“Like, no offense, Dad, but you weren’t there. You didn’t see anything. I was there. I was in it. And you – I know. I know you were working. You had to leave. You had to make your sacrifices. I get it. But I was alone. And it wasn’t – you know how it was Dad! What I had to deal with. So yeah, I’m doing this alone because I am alone. I’ve always been.”
He blinks a few times. His hand reaches up to pull on his earlobe.
“But – you always said you were okay. You always sounded so happy. All those adventures your mom took you on? The straight As. Your scholarship.”
Are you really that stupid? I know I wasn’t that good of a liar growing up.
She doesn’t say that.
Instead, she looks down, hugs herself. Then, exhausted:
“Come on, Dad. I was a kid. I said what I had to say. I was just a kid.”
And that second time. It rips something wide open. Tears flood her eyes. No holding it back now. She stares up at him. A choice. Silence.
He panics. Only for a second. His lips part, he takes a breath, about to explain and defend.
But then… A choice. Silence.
A distant look crosses his face. Like he’s remembering.
Then he stares back at her. His jaw twitches. But he stays still.
There are tears in his eyes.
“Baba–”
One word. Everything. The gentlest he’s ever sounded.
She’s five again. And he’s taken the day off from work just because she needed help building her first snowman.
“Baba, I’m sorry habibti.”
She’s six and shivering from a nightmare. He mutes Al Jazeera News and gets up from the couch. Hugs her. Cold fingertips, warm chest. His fanella fisted in her hand. Safe. Held.
“I love you ya Baba.”
She ruptures. Cries out. Her pain audible for once. Messy.
The kind of suffering that can’t be tied up with a pretty bow.
She sniffles. Gasps. Hiccups.
A child again.
Wipes at the snot with her sleeve. She hasn’t refilled the tissue box in months.
Soft eyes look back at her.
“No, Baba. I don’t wanna see you crying like this.”
But he doesn’t turn away. He stays right there on the screen, taking in her pain. A steady presence. Looking back at the light of his life.
And she knows now. That he will always see her. He will always hold her.
Even if it hurts him.
Even if he doesn’t know what to say.
Even if all he can do is witness.
She is a child again. With her Baba by her side.
She wakes up like she’s been pulled out from under water. Gasping. Thrust back into consciousness.
She’d barely slept. An hour or two? The kind of sleep that feels like work. She was solving math problems in her dreams.
From her bed, she takes inventory of the room. No damage. Just the blue-grey early morning light seeping through half-drawn curtains. And the walls, too white. No posters allowed. She hears the pigeons cooing by her window sill. Like every morning. Everything else, though–
Quiet.
The silence after an explosion. A held breath.
Her shoulder muscles ache.
She’d tried to hold him back last night. Had yanked at his collar, his sleeves. Pleaded with him as he raged through the hallway.
Probably messed something up in her shoulder from pulling too hard.
The smell is still there.
Alcohol, broken down. Vomited back up.
Sweet. Acidic. Sugar as assault.
It sticks to the air. Is it on her? She sniffs her curls. Swallows hard.
She tucks herself back under her bedsheets, like a coffin. The air inside is warm and contained. Takes a deep breath.
The thoughts whoosh in:
Get up.
Shower. Eat breakfast. Pack lunch. Don’t forget the math test. And the English homework. You can do that during break. Mom’s probably not gonna make it to work today. Text her boss before you leave.
Quieter: I don’t wanna lie again. I can’t trust her anymore. He scares me.
Get up.
Now!
She yanks her bedsheets off, jumps up, and out of the room.
The wall is cracked. Right next to her mom’s bedroom door.
She hadn’t seen that last night.
A jagged line almost to the ceiling.
She traces it with her eyes. Where does it end? Does something eventually collapse?
It fades out.
She shivers.
That smell.
She’d tried to clean last night. Dettol. Lemon chemical. Scrubbed everywhere. Still the acid.
Still the sugar. Still the bile.
She breathes through her mouth. Pushes her way to the bathroom.
Her reflection in the mirror is distorted. She avoids her own eyes. Picks at her scalp instead.
In the shower, she stares at the floral pattern of the wall tiles. Scrubs efficiently at her body.
Don’t look down.
Don’t check for bruises.
You don’t want to know.
There are books all over the hallway floor.
The copy of Black Beauty her dad got her for her 10th birthday. Face-down. Spine broken.
She picks it up and tries to smooth over the pages.
The mark remains, of course.
She tucks it under her arm. Takes it to her room. To the very back of the closet next to her diary. Returns for the rest of the books.
Forty Rules of Love.The Alchemist.
Nizar Qabbani.
She runs her finger over the gold-etched title.
Her stepdad loved Nizar’s poetry. Cherished it, usually.
Last night, though, nothing mattered.
Another explosion. And Nizar was collateral damage.
Just like her.
She rearranges the books by size. Makes sure nothing is out of place. Makes it pretty.
Then she moves.
Knocks softly at her mother’s door and tiptoes in.
Almost trips on the Persian rug as her eyes adjust to the thick darkness.
“Mama,” she whispers. “Habibti. Time for work.”
A groan.
She pulls out her phone and types:
Hello, this is Hala’s daughter, Bayan. My mother is sick today and won’t be able to make it to the office. She asked me to write this message and let you know.
She leans down to kiss the frown line etched on her mom’s forehead.
Sweaty. Clammy. Hair matted to the side of her face.
“I love you, Mama.”
The school bus is already pulling up when she steps outside.
She climbs in. Stands up straight. Breathes out.
It’s old and the seats are peeling, and it smells like Cheetos and Axe body spray.
The boys are screaming, pushing, smacking at each other. Puberty-cracked voices arguing about last night’s WWE Smackdown.
Abdulrahman yells that he can do a real suplex better than Brock Lesnar, and Saif dares him to try, and someone’s backpack is being used as a frisbee, and the third graders are already shrieking, and it’s 6:17 a.m.
“Can I get to my seat please?”
She barks out a laugh as she shoves Abdulrahman out of the way.
Plays her part. She’s strong. She’s fine. She’s fun.
One of the boys.
And in the corner of the back row — Khalid.
His hoodie is pulled up, but those green eyes are clear. Bright. Oh my god, how is it possible for someone to have such pretty eyes? Her heart flutters. Her cheeks burn. She can’t help but grin.
He sees her. Smiles back. Hands her one of his earbuds.
Their daily ritual.
She pulls out her math notebook. Flips to her neatly scribbled exam notes.
He takes out his lunchbox and offers her a baby carrot.
Pack lunch. Crap, I forgot.
The kids are still shouting. To her left, Anwar is beatboxing, and Maryam is arguing with the bus driver to turn on the radio.
But in her right ear, she hears Linkin Park.
Against my will, I stand beside my own reflection. It’s haunting. How I can’t seem to find myself again.
Her eyes flicker down to Khalid’s hands as he fidgets with his iPod, lingering for a second on his bitten-down nails, before snapping back to her notes.
Is he tired of lying, too?
Her handwriting in front of her gets blurry for a second. She blinks, scratches at her neck, clears her throat.
Then solves another math problem.
Reflection:
This collection is not just about the myth of resilience. It’s about who carries it. Through Bayan, we see how girls are expected to hold the weight. To stay composed. To be helpful. To clean up after violence, show up to school, and keep going. The boys and men around her take up space in other ways. Some disappear. Some explode. Some joke and wrestle and shout. She holds it all in.
Even her strength is a performance. Pain tucked into good grades and neat routines. Her breakdowns happen quietly, away from view. Like the teddy bear in her memory, the damage is easy to miss unless you look closely.
This is about how resilience becomes a mask. About how girls are taught to be fine. To be light. To be okay. And what begins to change when someone finally sees through it. When she is allowed to be tired. To break. And still be loved.
Hope in the Ashes
The night in Gaza had a sound. It wasn’t the soft hum of crickets or the distant murmur of city life — it was silence, heavy with unshed tears, broken only by the distant echo of something falling apart. In that silence, Amal often sat by the flickering candlelight, tracing the edges of her notebook like it held the map to a future no one else could see.
She had always believed that education was her escape route, a secret door in a crumbling wall. Every class she attended, every book she devoured, felt like laying another brick in the bridge leading her out of the ruins. Yet, life in Gaza was a cruel teacher — it taught her that even dreams came with a price.
On a rare day, when the sky didn’t weep fire, Amal joined an online workshop — her window to the world. Faces appeared like ghosts on the screen, untouched, unscarred. Among them was David, his voice smooth, unshaken by the kind of grief Amal carried like a second skin.
“I think education is within everyone’s reach these days,” he said with an easy smile. “We’ve got the internet, scholarships… If someone really wants it, they’ll find a way.”
His words landed on Amal like a stone thrown into a dry well. She stared at him, wondering how fragile his world must be if he truly believed that.
She spoke slowly, her voice calm but her heart raging, “And what if the path to school is lined with rubble? What if the internet is just a dead wire above a starving city? Have you ever buried your dreams because the sky rained missiles instead of mercy?”
David blinked, words deserting him. For the first time, he saw it — not the statistics, not the headlines — but a girl fighting a war with nothing but a pen.
“What keeps you going?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Amal smiled — a tired, stubborn smile. “Because my name is Amal… it means Hope. And sometimes, when everything around me collapses, it’s my own name that saves me. I carry hope, not just for myself… but for everyone who can no longer carry it.”
That day, Amal didn’t just speak — she carved her story into someone else’s reality. And as the screen dimmed, and Gaza returned to its mourning silence, she felt lighter. Somewhere out there, someone finally understood that for people like her, education wasn’t a dream — it was survival. And hope… was all they had left.
And in the darkness, she whispered to herself:
"They tried to bury me…
But they forgot…
I am the seed… of hope."
Mursal
Group 12
Student
Kabul, Afghanistan
When she was younger, her dreams stretched as far as the sky. Every morning, she woke up feeling like the world was hers to shape. She would close her eyes and see herself in a bright future—strong, unstoppable. The thought alone sent a thrill through her chest.
At night, she lay beside her mother, watching her face in the dim light. Her mother would run her fingers through her hair, her voice full of warmth as she told her stories. Her father’s steady hands rested on her shoulders whenever she spoke about her dreams, his quiet nod telling her he believed in her.
Then, 2021 came.
That year, her sister didn’t return to school. Her books sat untouched on the shelf, gathering dust. She stopped talking about her future, about the dreams she once carried so brightly. She would sit beside her, waiting, hoping she would say something. But every time she asked, her sister only gave her a small, tired smile and stayed silent.
Days turned into months, months into years. She moved up to sixth grade, her books filling with notes and dreams scribbled in the margins. She was determined to make up for the silence in their home, to carry both her sister’s dreams and hers.
In the classroom, her friends and her whispered about the future, their voices full of excitement. They bent over their notebooks, racing each other to answer the hardest questions first. The final exams approached, and they stayed up late, memorising pages by the glow of lanterns.
“Just three more exams,” she said one afternoon, grinning at her friends. “Then we’ll be seventh graders!”
The room fell silent.
One by one, heads lowered. A girl wiped her eyes quickly, as if she could hide the tears before they fell.
“Why are you crying?” she asked.
She didn’t answer. But another voice, quiet and broken, did.
“We don’t know if we’ll ever come back.”
The words hung in the air, heavier than anything they had studied. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. Her fingers curled into fists, gripping onto something—anything—to keep herself steady.
That night, her books lay untouched. She lay awake, staring at the ceiling, her sister’s silence replaying in her mind. The weight of it pressed against her chest.
Morning arrived too soon.
In the classroom, the exam paper blurred in front of her. Her teacher’s voice carried through the room.
“This is your last exam. You’ve all done so well.”
A tear slipped down her cheek, then another. She bit her lip, but the sob escaped anyway. Beside her, her friend’s shoulders trembled. She pressed her hands to her face, but the sound of her crying filled the room.
Her teacher rushed over, her eyes searching theirs. “Why are you crying?”
No one spoke.
Then her friend, through her tears, whispered, “We don’t know if we’ll be allowed to study next year.”
The room collapsed into quiet weeping. A chair scraped against the floor as someone stood up, their hands covering their face. Her teacher knelt beside her, pulling her close. She smelled of chalk dust and the books she always carried.
“Don’t think this way,” she whispered. “You will come back. I will be here, waiting for you.”
But even as she spoke, her voice wavered. Her fingers tightened around hers.
That day, when she stepped into her house, she washed her face quickly, scrubbing away the evidence of her tears. She sat at the dinner table, staring at her plate, pretending nothing had changed.
Then her father’s voice cut through the silence. “What’s wrong?”
She opened her mouth, but the words didn’t come. Instead, her chest ached, her shoulders shook. Her father pulled her into his arms, his warmth surrounding her.
She felt his body tremble.
Then, she heard it.
A sound she had never heard before.
Her father—crying.
Winter came, and the school gates locked behind them. She told herself that when spring arrived, they would open again. That they would return, just as they always had.
But when the cold faded and the trees turned green, the school remained silent.
No bell rang. No girls rushed through the gates, their laughter filling the air.
She stood outside, gripping the straps of her backpack. Her fingers dug into the fabric. Her chest felt hollow.
Behind her, her sister placed a hand on her shoulder.
She turned to her.
Her sister didn’t have to say anything.
She already knew.
This year, in 2025, girls are still not allowed to go to school.
It has been 1,268 days.
1,268 mornings where classrooms sat empty. 1,268 evenings where notebooks lay untouched. 1,268 days since they were told to stop learning.
She looked at her sister, at the quiet understanding in her eyes.
She finally understood her sister’s silence.
Because when your dreams are locked away behind closed doors, when the future you imagined is ripped from your hands, there are no words left to say.
Between Her, Society, and Gaza ...
A War on Dreams and Home ...
(Night falls. The ceiling, once white, is now blackened by fire and dust. The air is thick, suffocating, pressing against her like the weight of memories too heavy to carry. She lies on the worn-out sofa – her bed, her office, her world. Outside, Gaza breathes in silence, but inside, the voices rise.)
Society steps forward, arms crossed, voice sharp and accusing.
“So, you want to leave? After everything? After surviving all this, you would just walk away?”
She turns to the side, her voice low but firm, her fingers gripping the fabric of the sofa.
“It is not about walking away. It is about finding a way forward. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Didn’t you once say education is our weapon?
Society shakes its head.
“Education? And where will that take you? To some foreign land where you’ll become someone else? Where you’ll speak of Gaza like it’s just a chapter in your past?”
She sits up suddenly, frustration flashing in her eyes.
“How could I ever forget? Gaza is in every word I write, every dream I hold. But tell me—what future is left here? Schools reduced to dust, books buried under rubble, professors gone… How does one learn when even hope is under siege?”
Gaza City whispers, its voice as soft as a mother comforting her child.
“I hear your pain. I feel it in every broken street, in every family torn apart. I know you’re tired. But don’t say there’s no hope. You are my hope.”
Her eyes sting with unshed tears, her voice breaking.
“I want to believe that. But what about the families who have lost everything? The children with no schools to return to? The wounded waiting for treatment that may never come? My mother makes bread over a fire because there’s no gas, no electricity. My dad counts the days without medicine. And I … “
Society cuts in, its voice sharp as a knife.
“And you think leaving will solve it all?”
Her voice rising in frustration.
“I never said that! But tell me, what should I do? Stay and watch my dreams suffocate under the weight of war? Or go, learn, and come back stronger—so I can fight with more than just words?”
Gaza City exhales, sorrow heavy in its tone.
“You speak of leaving, but I fear being left alone. So many have gone. My streets are empty, my laughter fades. Will you return?”
A single tear slips down her cheek. She wipes it away quickly, as if ashamed of weakness.
“How could I not? My heart beats with your pulse. Even if my body crosses borders, my soul stays with you. But I need to go. I need to see a world where hospitals have medicine, where the sky isn’t a constant threat, where a degree isn’t a privilege but a right. And then, I’ll bring it all back. I promise.”
Society exhales, quieter now, but doubt still lingers in its gaze.
“Promises are easy. Will you keep yours?”
Gaza City stands tall, its voice quiet but full of strength.
“They will. Because they are mine. And no distance will ever change that.”
(Silence settles.)
(The dust still lingers, the air still heavy. But in the quiet, something else takes root. Determination! Her eyes close, exhaustion pulling her under. And even in sleep, Gaza’s voice stays. The night presses in, suffocating. She lies on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, but she is not alone. The voices return again, louder this time—doubtful, relentless.)
Society steps closer, its presence cold, unwavering.
“You’re really going through with this? Traveling alone? A girl, leaving her family, her place? You know what people will say.”
She exhales sharply.
“Isn’t it enough that borders and restrictions already trap us? Must you add more chains? Why must I fight not just war, but you too?”
Society tilts its head, amusement creeping into its voice.
“You act as if we are your enemy. We are your people. We know what’s best for you. A girl alone in a foreign land? They’ll say she’s lost her morals, her faith—become one of them.”
She sits up, her voice steady but burning with anger.
“One of them? You mean educated? Independent? Someone who refuses to let war decide her fate? Tell me, where do you see me? At the end of it all, where do I belong?”
Society steps back slightly, but its voice remains firm and final.
“Where every woman belongs—in her home, raising children, cooking in the kitchen. That is your place.”
A bitter laugh escapes her lips, her eyes burning.
“So that’s it? I educate myself, I build, I fight for a future, only to be told my worth is measured by the meals I serve? If I raise educated children, if I shape minds, if I contribute to this very society—does that not matter? Or is a woman’s role only valid when it is silent and unseen?”
Society shrugs, indifferent.
“It’s tradition. It’s how things are.”
She shakes her head, her voice breaking under the weight of exhaustion and frustration.
“And war wasn’t how things were, but we lost everything anyway! Our homes, our jobs, our only sources of living—must I lose my hope too? Must I bury my dreams in the rubble like everything else?”
For the first time, Society hesitates, its voice softer.
“We don’t want to see you fail.”
She looks away, eyes filled with determination.
“Then don’t stand in my way. Don’t be another wall I have to break through. Let me dream. Let me push forward. If you can’t walk beside me, at least don’t pull me back.”
(Silence.)
(The weight of war, of expectations of shattered lives continues to exist)
Gaza City steps forward, sorrow clearly shown in its voice.
“Are you leaving me?”
She closes her eyes, her voice barely a whisper.
“I don’t want to… but what other choices do I have?”
Gaza City said strongly, desperation woven into its words.
“You always had a choice. You always belonged to me.”
She runs a hand over the dust, tracing memories lost in the wreckage.
“I belonged to you when my home still stood, when my grandfather’s laughter echoed in our home, when I could walk my streets without feeling like a stranger. But now? Now I am a survivor, a refugee in my own skin."
Gaza City grips her hands, holding them tight.
“You are more than that. You are my voice, my memory. If you leave, who will remember me?”
She looks around the broken room that once held everything she loved, her gaze softening.
“Then let me carry you with me. Let me go, so I can return stronger. So, I can tell the world who you really are. So, I can be more than just a survivor.”
(Silence)
(Gaza City does not answer, but it does not stop her either. Society stands still, judgmental, unwilling to change, but she no longer waits for permission. She turns away, staring at the darkened ceiling, knowing tomorrow she will fight again. Not just for herself, but for every girl after her.)
Maria Fernanda Cossio Calderon
Group 10
Environment and Sustainable Development Professional
La Paz, Bolivia
Where gold flows like poison
Don Felipe is the best cocoa producer there is in Aguas Claras, a title earned after dedicating his whole life to grow not only the most beautiful cocoa plots in the village, but also for his ability to turn his land into a haven, which with the passing of time is becoming more and more needed in Aguas Claras. However, some people in the village, especially the younger ones, seem to forget how valuable this small oasis is.
“Ay, mis wawas, mi orgullo”. Don Felipe would say, his calloused hands gently brushing the leaves of his cocoa plants. “You don’t need gold or mercury to shine. You’re worth more than that, you give life, no diseases. But they don’t get it, do they? Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe no matter what the cooperatives say”.
After working in the fields, there wasn’t much to do in Aguas Claras, so Don Felipe often spent his afternoons at Pedro’s Golden Cantina, the only bar in the village. The cantina was a small room where the heat seemed to gather and linger, made worse by the fan that had stopped working five years earlier. Besides the bar made of unpainted cement, the cantina had three white plastic tables, one of which had a leg held together with duct tape. The routine was always the same: Don Felipe would arrive to find Pedro ready to play cards. After a while, the bar would start to fill up and the music from the jukebox would begin to play. With the music came toasts, dancing and the not that occasional drunken brawl.
One evening, while drinking his fifth glass of the night, a voice nearby called his name. Don Felipe turned and saw a younger man sliding into the chair next to him. “Don Felipe, it’s been a while!” It was the youngest son of his compadre Félix, the one who had moved to the city some years back. Just as Don Felipe stood to hug him, he noticed the cap the young man was wearing, embroidered with the words Aguas Claras Mining Cooperative. “I heard you’re still a legend and that no one has been able to grow cocoa like you in all these years.”
Don Felipe’s smile faltered as his eyes lingered on the cap. He sat back down, his enthusiasm dampened. “So, you’ve joined the cooperatives now. I didn’t think your father would raise his kids to chase quick money without thinking about the community.”
The young man frowned at Don Felipe’s words. “What else am I supposed to do? There are no other jobs here and in the city things aren’t much better. My wife is pregnant and I need to provide for my family. Should I just pray that there are no droughts this year and wait for the crops to grow while my family goes hungry?”
“Real men take care of their land and feed their family with their own hands. That’s how it’s always been. That’s how it should always be. Gold won’t teach your children respect for the earth or the value of hard work, but the land will.”
The young man stood up abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor. “The world is changing, Don Felipe. You can’t stop progress.”
Before he could say anything else, a voice called out from the bar. “Don Felipe! This one’s on the house! Let’s toast to one of the best men in Aguas Claras.” Don Felipe turned toward the bar. As he raised his glass, his thoughts drifted back to a time when life in Aguas Claras was simpler, when the village’s name still made sense.
When Don Felipe was a child, there was no contradiction between the village’s name and the river that flowed through it. Aguas Claras, clear water, that’s what Felipe used to see every morning when he ran down the hill, jumped into the river and caught fish for his mother to cook. This was his favourite part of the day, not only because he wasn’t very fond of school, but also because he felt he was obeying his father’s command to take care of the house whenever he went to work on the cocoa plots. The river was alive then, its waters sparkling under the sun, its banks teeming with life.
Now, if you go to Aguas Claras, the river has a strange turquoise tone, a sickly hue that discloses the mercury used to extract gold upstream. When Don Felipe’s children were born, he forbade his wife from letting them swim in the river. He couldn’t bear the thought of them touching water that had turned toxic, water that had once been his refuge and playground. After the river’s colour changed, rumours began to spread, swimming in it or eating its fish would make children stupid, people said. Don Felipe didn’t know if the rumours were true, but he wasn’t willing to take the risk.
The blurred memory of this river once filled with life, was what made Don Felipe so decisive to make his cocoa plot the best in Aguas Claras. He knew he had no control over what the mining companies did to the river, so he had to focus on what he could control: his land. Just as his father did, he knew he had to leave something to his children and this was his driving force to keep going despite the droughts and floods that were becoming more and more frequent. It was very simple for him: if you know how to farm, you will never starve even if you’re poor. That’s what he used to tell his children every time they worked with him. But he could see the doubt in their eyes and he couldn’t blame them. The promise of quick money by joining a mining cooperative had even appealed him at some point.
Despite all his admirable qualities, Don Felipe was, after all, only human, flawed and far from perfect. For much of his life, it was not uncommon for him to wake up with a pounding headache, the price of a long night of chicha and cumbia spent at Pedro’s Golden Cantina. Too often he seemed to forget that his actions carried consequences beyond him. On those mornings, as he nursed his chaki, his wife, bore the pain of fresh bruises.
After one of those nights, Don Felipe walked into the kitchen, his head throbbing from the night before. His wife Lucila stood by the sink, her sleeves pulled down to her wrists despite the heat. The table was empty. “Where’s breakfast?” he asked.
“I didn’t make any. I was busy trying to cover up. So people wouldn’t see what kind of man I married.” Her face was carefully made up, but there was a tiny hint of a bruise that peeked out from under the powder on her left eye. As she spoke, her hands kept scrubbing the same cup over and over. The porcelain clinked against the sink. She didn't look at him.
He stood in the kitchen, the clinking of the cup against the sink echoing in his ears. He wanted to justify himself, but no words came out. Instead, he turned to the stove and began to do something he hadn’t done in years: breakfast. He fried eggs, warmed some bread and made coffee for two. Then he set the table. Lucila watched him, but her face was as still as the surface of a frozen lake. When he finally gestured for her to sit, she hesitated but after a moment she joined him at the table. They ate in silence. The eggs grew cold between bites, the coffee darker and bitter. When they finished, Lucila rose without a word and cleared only her plate.
Don Felipe couldn’t bear that awkward silence that settled in the house, so he walked out toward his plots, the only place that could bring him some peace in moments like this. As he reached the fields, he noticed that the leaves of his cocoa plants were coated in a thin layer of dust, their vibrant green dulled under a gray film. He ran his fingers over the leaves, trying to wipe it away, but the dust clung stubbornly. It was the mark of the dredges upstream, tearing through the land and leaving their poison in the air. The mining cooperatives were getting closer and their shadow was already creeping into his haven.
Over the next few days, the signs of destruction became impossible to ignore. The river, already tainted with its sickly turquoise hue, seemed to grow darker. The birds no longer sang in the trees, the once-familiar sounds of the land were replaced by the distant rumble of machinery, growing louder each day. Staring at the river’s poisoned water, Don Felipe shook his head with a bitter taste in his mouth: mercury. They were using mercury and no one seemed to care. Not the cooperatives, not the villagers, and the authorities were absent as always. The poison was everywhere, in the water, in the soil, in the air they breathed, in the dust on his plants, in the silence of the birds. And yet, at Pedro’s Golden Cantina and in the square of the village, life went on, as if nothing had changed.
One morning, Don Felipe stood at the edge of his fields, the cocoa plants swaying gently in the breeze. The machines were tearing through the neighbouring plots, their engines roaring as they ripped the earth apart. The green land was shrinking, day by day and soon it would be his turn. As the sun dipped below the hills, Don Felipe returned home to find Lucila sitting on a chair outside their home, her hands resting in her lap. The children were inside, their voices fainted through the open window. He hesitated, then he sat beside her.
“The dredges are getting closer,” he said. “They’ll be at our land soon and you know they don’t care about the previous consultation.”
Lucila nodded, her face calm but her eyes tired. “I know.”
The previous consultation, enshrined in Bolivia’s constitution, was supposed to protect communities like theirs. It required anyone to consult indigenous and local people before approving projects that would affect their land through the extraction of natural resources. But everyone knew that it was just words on paper. The mining cooperatives moved forward without asking, without listening, as if the people who had lived on this land for generations were invisible. And the government just turned a blind eye as long as the gold kept flowing and the cooperatives lined the right pockets.
They sat in silence for a moment listening to the distant rumble of the dredges. “You’ve always taken such good care of the land, Felipe. But the land doesn’t need you the way we do.” Lucila had a soft and steady voice
He looked at her and finally saw the years of quiet suffering in her face, the bruises she hid, the meals she cooked alone, the nights she spent waiting for him to come home. How had she managed to make ends meet if he sometimes spent a week’s income in a single night at the cantina? He had always poured his love into the soil, but what had he given to his family?
“I…” he began, but what could he say? That he was sorry? That he would change? He didn’t know if he could; they both knew it.
Lucila reached over and placed a hand on his. “You’re a good man, Felipe. But you’re not just a farmer. You’re also a husband and a father.”
“Maybe we should try our luck in the city,” he said quietly. “I have a cousin there, he’s a minibus driver. Maybe he can help me join his union.”
Lucila looked at him, her face unreadable. Then, softly, she replied, “Maybe.”
Before reaching Uganda, I trekked for weeks through dense forests and dusty roads, crossing the Rishasha River under a scorching sun that weighed on me like a heavy hand. Fear gnawed with every distant gunshot, my legs aching as I left behind my family’s mud-brick home, the river where I fished with my brothers, and a school filled with friends’ laughter—now a fading dream.
On April 23, 2019, I stumbled into the Ugandan Transit Centre In Matanda, a chaotic blur of sweat, damp earth, and diesel fumes from rumbling trucks. The air was dry, and it scratched my throat. Children wailed, aid workers barked orders, and a low hum of exhausted voices filled the space. Red mud clung to my feet, tents flapped in the wind. People moved everywhere, speaking different languages. The noise was loud and confusing. I felt lost and alone, yet alive with relief.
As I walked through the crowd, I saw some people looking at me. There was Bright from Rwanda, with his big smile and loud laugh that made everyone happy. And there was John from Congo, quiet but strong, with kind eyes that made you feel safe. We didn’t know what would happen next, but we were all in the same boat. Soon, we became friends because we understood each other’s struggles.
Bright was tall and skinny, with curly hair and funny jokes. He could make anyone laugh, and his stories about Rwanda were so good we couldn’t stop giggling. John was different—calm and gentle. He didn’t talk much, but when he did, it made you feel better. We were from different places, but we all felt the same: confused and trying to figure out this new life.
We grew close fast. We laughed together, told stories, and helped each other when things got hard. It was like finding a warm, safe spot in a big storm. At night, we’d sit around a small tents , talking about our old lives and what we hoped for next. Those moments felt special.
But it wasn’t always easy. Sometimes we fought. Once, Bright and John argued loudly about a football game. It felt tricky, like we might break apart. But we learned to say sorry and move on. That made our friendship stronger.
One day, Bright said something I’ll never forget. "We don’t have much," he said, "but we have each other." That’s when I understood—the transit centre wasn’t just a place to stay. It was a family. We were all connected, ready to help each other no matter what.
When it was time to leave for the refugee camps, I felt happy and sad at the same time. I was excited for something new, but I didn’t want to lose my friends. We hugged tight, crying as we said goodbye. We promised to keep in touch, and I knew our bond wouldn’t break, even if we were far apart.
The Transit Center was only a short stop, but the friends I made there will stay with me forever. They showed me that even in hard times, there’s hope. With good people beside you, you can get through anything.
For over five years, I’ve lived in Kyaka II refugee camp, where two new people, Jules and Robert, became my anchors. Jules, a wiry Ugandan volunteer, had a laugh that sliced through despair and a way of listening that made you feel seen. Robert, a quiet Congolese refugee with deep, story-filled eyes, shared his last crumbs without hesitation. One starry night, we roasted scavenged maize by my shelter. Jules spun exaggerated tales until we laughed breathless, and Robert’s soft Lingala song wove us closer—a simple, warm moment that bound us like family.
Life here tests you. Two years ago, a storm tore through, flooding paths and soaking my notebook and a photo of my mother. Shivering, I wondered if this was it—until Robert arrived with a tarp, grinning through the rain, and Jules directed us like a general to rebuild. That day taught me resilience isn’t just survival; it’s the people who hold you up.
I still remember the market in Kyaka II refugee camp when I first arrived. It was a bustling hub of activity, with vendors selling everything from fresh produce to second-hand clothes. The smell of ripe mangoes and roasting plantains filled the air, mingling with the sound of lively chatter and the rustling of bags.
But that was before the influx of new refugees. Now, the market feels different. The crowds are thicker, the noise louder. The smell of food is still there, but it's overpowered by the stench of garbage and human waste. The vendors' stalls are more cramped, their goods spilling out onto the dirt floor.
As I walk through the market, I notice the small details that reveal the shift. The vendors' faces are more gaunt, their eyes more tired. Fresh pineapples were replaced with tins of sardines– less fresh produce, more dried beans and rice. The chatter is less lively, the conversations more hushed.
Despite the changes, the market still feels like a lifeline. It's where we refugees come to connect, to share news and stories. It's where we find comfort in the familiar rhythms of commerce and community.
As I make my way through the crowds, I'm struck by the resilience of the human spirit. Even in the midst of chaos and uncertainty, we find ways to adapt, to thrive.
The market in Kyaka II refugee camp has changed but it’s still a place that brings people together .
I’ve been humbled by the generosity of others—South Sudanese men teaching me to type, a Somali elder sharing porridge and wisdom. In a place of scarcity, they gave freely, proving kindness needs no borders.
Goodbyes sting. When Jules left for resettlement two years ago, it was a quiet handshake and a promise to write. His lanky frame faded down the dusty road, leaving an ache. With Robert, still here, every day feels like a slow farewell, this camp a temporary hold.
War stole my education—fleeing without papers, I can’t afford school fees. My dream of journalism hangs out of reach, jobs and scholarships elusive. Yet I push on, advocating for refugee rights, especially education, and sharing my story to spotlight displacement’s toll.
When I look back now, I see how much I have learned: how important friends and community are. Even when life is tough, people can come together and make it better. I also learned to love how different we all are—our stories and cultures made everything richer.
These years taught me to bend without breaking, to adapt with scraps, and to lean on community — a stranger’s smile or song stitching me whole. They’ve lit a stubborn hope in me: to one day return to DR Congo or resettle elsewhere, not just surviving, but rebuilding.
Today, I believe in second chances—for me and every displaced dreamer fighting to be seen. Thank you for hearing my story. May it move you to learn more and support those, like me, seeking a way home.
Group 11 of Creative Writing for Social Change
Desk Editor & Guest/Interview Producer
Nairobi, Kenya
TRIGGER WARNING: Descriptions of gender based violence
Mary, a mother of three, wakes up in a hospital bed after surviving a brutal attack from her husband, Judah. Her body is covered in scars, her throat aches from being strangled, and her daughter sits beside her, eyes filled with fear and relief. As Mary tries to make sense of her surroundings, fragments of her past surface—memories of a marriage built on charm and promises, now reduced to a nightmare of daily violence. She is not just healing from physical wounds but from years of emotional and psychological torment.
She is forced to confront why she stayed with Judah for so long. Fear of the unknown kept her trapped—she had no financial independence, no place to go, and society constantly reminded her that a "good wife endures." The church elders told her to pray harder. The police dismissed her cries for help. She told herself she was staying for her children, but deep down, she feared the shame of admitting she had made a mistake, of facing a world that might not support her. Even worse, she recognized Judah in her father—the same cycle of violence she swore she’d never repeat.
When she learns that her neighbour was the one who saved her, Mary feels a mixture of gratitude and humiliation. The neighbour had warned her for years, urging her to leave, but she never could. Now, with Judah in police custody for attempted murder, Mary faces a terrifying new reality: What comes next?
But this time, something is different. Instead of fear, there is anger. Not just at Judah, but at the world that enabled him. At the system that dismissed her suffering. At herself, for believing love meant enduring pain. She looks at her children—traumatized but alive—and makes a decision. This cycle ends with me.
After being discharged, Mary seeks therapy, not just for herself but for her children. She partners with organizations that support survivors of domestic violence, determined to help women who, like her, once believed they had no way out. She shares her story publicly, shattering the silence that nearly killed her. Meanwhile, Judah remains behind bars, but the scars he left are not easily erased. Healing is slow, painful, and full of setbacks—but Mary refuses to be silent any longer.
Months later, Mary stands before a packed community hall, speaking at an event for survivors. She grips the microphone, steady and sure, her voice no longer trembling. "For years, I stayed because I thought I had no choice. But I do. We all do." In the front row, a young woman watches with wide, fearful eyes—the same eyes Mary once had. After the event, she hesitantly approaches. "I don’t know if I can leave," she whispers. Mary takes her hands, firm yet gentle. "You don’t have to do it alone." With every woman she helps, Mary’s life is filled with purpose. The cycle of silence is broken. And for the first time in her life, she is truly free.
Luo translation
Mary, min nyithindo adek, ochiew e otanda mar osiptal bang' tony kuom gocho marach mane otimne gi chwore, Judah. Dende opong’ gi mbelni, duonde remo kaluwore gi kaka nodeye, kendo nyare obet e bathe, to wang’e opong’ gi luoro kod kuwe. Ka Mary temo paro gik ma timore aluora mare, ochako paro gik mane otimorene chon—paro mag keny ma ne oger e wi ng’iyo kod sing’o, ma sani osebedo mana lek marach mar goch ma pile ka pile. Ok ni ochango mana kuom rem mag del kende; to bende ochango kuom higni mang’eny mag chand marach e chunye kod pache.
Ochuno ni openjre gimomiyo nodak gi Juda kuom kinde malach kamano. Luoro mar gik ma ok ong’ere ne otweye -nene oonge pesa moluongo ni mare, ne onge kama ne onyalo dhie, kendo oganda ne parone kinde ka kinde ni "dhako maber bedo jachuny." Jodongo mag kanisa nowachone ni olam matek moloyo. Jopolisi ne ok okawo matek ywak mare mar dwaro kony. Ne onyisore owuon ni obet nikech nyithinde, to ei chunye, ne oluoro wich kuot mar yie ni notimo richo, mar romo gi piny ma nyalo bedo ni ok bi konye. Marach moloyo, ne oneno wuon mare ei Juda- ma ne nigi timbe mag anjao ma ne osingore ni ok obi nwoyo.
Kane owinjo ni jirande ema ne orese, Mary nowinjo ka en gi erokamano kod wich kuot moriwore. Jirandeno ne osebedo ka nyise kuom higni mang’eny, ka ojiwe mondo owuogi, to ne ok onyal. Sani, ka Juda ni e jela mar polisi nikech notemo nego ng’ato, Mary yudo ka en gi wach manyien ma miye luoro: Ang’o mabiro bang’e?
Kata kamano, e kindeni, nitie gimoro mopogore. Kar bedo gi luoro, nitie mirima. Ok mana e wi Juda kende, to bende e piny ma ne omiye nyalo. Kuom oganda ma ne ok okawo chandruok mare ka gimoro malich. Kuom en owuon, nikech noparo ni hera ne tiende dak gi lit mosiko. Ong’iyo nyithinde—ma owinjo marach to pod gin mangima—kaeto okawo okang’. Timbegi nyaka rum koda.
Kane osewouk e osiptal, Mary nomanyo thieth mar obuongo, ok mana ne en owuon, to bende ne nyithinde. Otiyo kanyakla gi riwruoge ma konyo jogo ma osekalo e goch manie mier, kendo ochung’ motegno mar konyo mon ma, kaka en, chon ne paro ni onge konyruok ka giwuok. Onyiso ji wachne e lela, kendo oketho ling ma ne chiegni nege. Kata kamano, Juda pod odong’ e od twech, mak mana ni mbelni ma ne oweyo ok nyal ruchi mayot. Chang biro mos, gi lit, kendo opong’ gi gik ma duoko ng’ato chien—kata kamano Mary otamore ling’ kendo.
Bang’ dweche moko, Mary ochung’ e nyim galamoro ei od romo, ka owuoyo e nyasi moro ma ne itimo ne jogo ma ne osekalo e goch mege udi to odong’ mangima. Omako maikrofon, kochung’ motegno kendo gi adiera, duonde okwe kendo ok tetni. “Kuom higni mang’eny, ne abedo nikech ne aparo ni onge gima anyalo timo. Kata kamano, an gi geno. Wan duto wan gi geno.” E laini ma nyime, nyako moro ma rawera neno gi wang’e madongo kendo ma nigi luoro—wenge ma Maria ne nigo chon. Bang’ romono, odhi machiegni kode ka en gi luoro. Okuodhone niya: “Ok ang’eyo ka anyalo wuok.” Mary nomako lwete, motegno to gi muolo. “Ok onego itim kamano kendi.” Kuom mine moro amora ma Mary okonyo, ngima mar Mary bedo ka opong’ gi teko mar konyo. Timbe mege ling’ kisandori osekethore. Kendo en okang’ mokwongo kuom ngimane, owinjo ka en gi thuolo mar adier.
February 2024.
Her journey back to the ruins of home.
She steps out into the street, a sharp breath held in her chest for a brief second before she lets it go. The broken and bumpy sidewalk creates harsh angles in the bottoms of her shoes, yet she hardly feels them. Her feet have mastered the dialect of destruction. The path that one day echoed with the quick footsteps of students and the cheerful conversations of neighbors is now a gloomy area of cracked pavement and distorted metal. A fragment of glass cracked under her foot; a sound that once signified something lost but, in a city, drowned in debris holds no significance at all.
She remembers her city before: the golden glow of the sun against soft gray walls, the lively markets thick with the scent of freshly baked bread and spices, the hum of life threading through every alley. Yet now everything feels so foreign, more suffocating. The buildings that had stood tall, where memories had bloomed, lay broken, mere skeletons of their former selves. Silence weighs heavily except for the whisper of the wind through ruins blending with the distant sobs of a mother embracing nothing but loss.
She notices a group of children, their eyes unnaturally wide, too hollow for their tender years. Their clothes ragged and their faces worn with a grief too deep for words. Orphans of war! In their weary faces, a silent witness to all that was taken. She presses forward, her steps slow and hesitant mirroring the exhaustion of her people. Their bodies, thin and frail, bear the marks of long months of starvation. Their faces are darker, aged beyond their years, their eyes heavy with fatigue. Injuries are everywhere: amputated limbs, bandaged wounds, silent pain carried with each step. Old women are pushed in wheelchairs. Wooden carts pulled by animals are the only means of transportation left. Schools have become overcrowded shelters, filled with the displaced. Their walls echoing with the cries of those who have nowhere else to go. Students, or who once were students, wander aimlessly, without classrooms, teachers, or books. They search for water, food, firewood, or anything that can be used to cook.
A girl in her late teens stopped her, holding a hungry infant in her arms. Her voice is filled with desperation as she says, “Do you know where I can find milk?”. She felt a stone in her throat and could only respond with a silent, sorrowful shake of her head.
Every familiar corner was now unrecognizable, every turn revealing another wound in the body of her city. Then she reaches it… Her home, or what remains of it!
Here, at this spot, her grandfather sat. She shut her eyes, in an attempt to block out the oppressive weight of the world around her, but the memories rushed in. Her grandfather’s stories while gathering around him by the fire. His laughter deep and comforting as he broke bread for them. Now, his chair is empty…more than empty. It's gone! This was where he sat. This was where he died. Everything had vanished with the sound of an explosion that took his life. A martyr claimed by the war, swallowed by the world just like so many others.
Climbing the stairs in the dark, her feet silently count the steps: seven, then another seven, and six more, the pattern repeating once more. With each step, she approaches the place she once called home. The door, once warm brown, now has a blackened frame. She enters, the acrid stink of burnt furniture and plastic filling the air. The walls, once beautiful cream, are now covered in bare brick and soot, leftovers of the fire that devoured the home.
Her fingers slide lightly over the marks on the family dining table. It was where her mother had served warm cups of tea. The aroma of mint and freshly baked cookies is now a distant memory. The curtains, once embroidered with delicate golden patterns, now hang in tatters consumed by the flames. Beyond them is the window. It was where she used to spend hours watching the sun dance and daydreaming about places she had yet to explore.
She hears someone ask, “What time is it?” Without thinking, she glances at the corner where the clock once hung. But there’s nothing left! Only a hole in the wall, a scar from where it had been. On the other side, the shadows of the TV loom, a silent witness to years of news, cartoons, and family arguments. Now lies only a pile of shattered glass and melted plastic.
The space that had once been theirs was now lifeless. The calming warmth of the living room, teeming with sounds, was abruptly replaced by the noise of neglect. Despite everything, her mind fights back, filling the spaces with memories of what used to be.
Then ... she walks into her room. This is not the same room she had before. Previously, it had provided consolation and mirrored her identity. Even in its little chaos, there was a sense of order and coziness in the arrangement of everything. The scent of fresh laundry filled the air, books piled around the desk, and maybe a slight aroma of peach fragrance. Everything has vanished, replaced by the smell of burnt memories.
The bed where she once lay reading before sleep and the desk where she wrote, studied, and planned for a future are nothing but ashes. Her hands linger in the air where the closest used to be, reaching for something that wasn’t there. The closet that held her clothes, childhood memories, charcoal drawings and her mother's precious gift, a radio-shaped plastic pencil case, is gone, leaving nothing but the burnt remains of fabric. What’s left isn’t a room at all! Just walls with gaping holes. A ceiling barely holding together. A floor covered in soot and debris.
Through one of the holes in the wall, she sees the world outside. A world just as broken as this room. The path outside is filled chunks of concrete, and broken pieces of homes and lives. The twilight sky glows faintly with the sun’s final breath. And yet, if she looks far enough, past all the destruction, at the very end of the path, she can still see the sea on the horizon.
Her hand reaches for something, her fingers brushing against something cold and metallic. It was the butterfly necklace. The one a friend had given her. The lone gift that had survived the flames. the only piece of a previous life that was still intact. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but it wasn’t enough to stem the flow of tears. She closed her fingers around it, clutching it tight. It was all she had left of the warmth, the life that once filled these borders. But even the butterfly, once delicate and bright, is now dull, its wings worn down by the ashes of the past. Yet, it still stands, existing just like the people outside, just like her.
Mahan Aslam
Group 11 of Creative Writing for Social Change.
Final Year Medical Student.
Baluchistan, Pakistan.
Zeba’s eyes, swollen and red, had emptied themselves of tears, her face flushed with the weight of sorrow and constant crying.
She had almost lost the will to live; nothing felt right anymore. For a while, she closed her eyes — her head throbbed from all the crying, and her dry, tear-stained eyes stung as the sunlight hit them.
She found herself sitting face-to-face with her younger self, both silent, looking at each other.
It was the first time they had met after years.
Weak from crying, her back aching, Zeba leaned against her red comfort pillow, embroidered with Balochi Doch Jalarr — a gift from a woman whose story she had written — as she spoke in a weary voice.
Her: Why are you here?
Younger Self: I was missing you.
The distance between them wasn’t much, just the length of the red mat in the veranda — Zeba on one side, her younger self on the other.
Her: But I don’t—
Younger Self (smirking): I know you’ve been missing me too.
Wrapped in a dark brown shawl, stitched by her mother, she tightened it as the winter breeze brushed against her, holding onto its warmth.
Her: You’re the last thought in my mind.
Younger Self (softly): Then why am I still here?
Silence
Her (pausing, voice heavy): You should know… you never really left.
Younger Self: Because you locked me in a room with no other way out.
Her: Maybe that’s why I’m full of memories… yet no peace.
Younger Self: Isn’t this what missing feels like?
Her: Maybe…Yes
Younger Self: Then why run from it?
Her: Because I don’t want to relive the pain.
Younger Self: But isn’t running still carrying it?
Her: Facing it just makes the pain heavier.
Younger Self (with gloomy eyes and a sorrowful tone): Holding on only makes the pain heavier.
Her (with hope in her eyes, waiting for a solution): Tell me how to let it go?
Younger Self: Stop Running from it.
Her: It’s not that easy.
Younger Self: I know. But hiding makes it harder.
She pauses, her words caught in her throat. Her younger self continues, gently yet firmly.
Younger Self: It’s time for you to free me.
She listens, really listens.
Younger Self: Don’t let your future self have this conversation. Because if not now… then never.
She gasps, taking a deep breath.
Younger Self: We’ll both heal if you let me go.
She listens to the way a child, after sobbing into their mother’s arms, finally quiets down — breath still shaky but holding on to the warmth of reassurance.
Younger Self: I’ll be with you, side by side, in every laugh, every cry, healing and becoming whole.
Younger Self (with a quiet voice, soft yet clear enough for someone to hear): Our new reality can be us living side by side, free and happy.
Her face shows a sense of realisation as if she knew it was right and silently agreed.
She hesitates, but without waiting for permission, she embraces her younger self.
And she cries. Like a child who wakes up to find their mother has stepped away in their sleep — clinging, afraid to let go, sobbing with all her heart. But this time, she is holding herself too.
As she sat there, she wondered, If I, even after therapy, medicine, and every possible way of healing, still need a space to talk to someone who carries the same sadness, how many others must feel the same?
As a writer, she had told the stories of women in her community, but it was the moment she envisioned HerSpace — a place where stories weren’t just told but truly held.
The community started small, beginning with friends, and gradually reached more women in the community.
A space not just to endure their traumas, but to reclaim them, share, and heal together.
In her village, every evening, men would gather to share their stories, but women had no such space. Their days never truly ended — burdened with responsibilities and judged if they ever paused.
Zeba grew up longing to be visible — to her parents, to everyone around her. Her parents, who were separated but never divorced, were held back by a society where divorce was too big a step. So whenever they met, it wasn’t peace or closure — just the same old arguments, leaving Zeba caught in the middle, longing for a family that never truly was.
When she stayed with her father’s family, she felt like an outsider — unnoticed, as if she didn’t belong. And with her mother’s family, she was seen as a burden, a responsibility no one wanted to carry.
Though her financial needs were met, what a child truly needs is support and attention — something she was always left longing for.
She stayed with her mother when she started school because a girl, they said, should be with her mother. Her father visited her once a month, and whenever they met, she would wave, sit beside him, and then slowly fade into silence — he felt like a stranger now, a man who appeared only once a month.
She began pleasing everyone around her, desperate for attention — even from those who never truly loved her. Just to be seen. Always. Even if only for a while.
At school, she listened as her friends talked about their fathers dropping them off in the morning, their mothers packing their tiffins with homemade food, combing their hair, and welcoming them home with warm meals before they left for madrasa or tuition. She longed for the same — a home where both parents were there, sharing the little moments.
But now, she knew — that was never meant for her.
In moments of longing, when she sat with her mother, she saw the helplessness in her eyes — she wanted the best for her daughter but didn’t know how. She didn’t know where to find stability or how to hold on to it.
She realised how suffering always seemed to fall on women. She knew her father might have had his low moments, but her mother — whom she had seen every day, whose helpless eyes she knew too well — never even had the high ones.
She was sure, just like every other man in the village, her father ended his days with tea in a dabba and spent his free time at picnics. But for her mother, there was no escape — only responsibilities, day after day.
A woman who had endured her own struggles, yet was blamed for everything — the separation, the chaos of her relationship.
At times, when they sat together, her mother would say to her, “You don’t need to be like me. Dream big, study harder, and become extraordinary.”
In bits and pieces, her mother tried to share her story — never fully, but through broken conversations, just enough for her to understand.
It was in those moments that she was drawn to writing, to tell the stories of women through a woman’s gaze, using words to make sense of a world she never quite felt at home in.
The weight of those early years never truly faded. It stayed in the back of her mind, a quiet voice reminding her that nothing lasts forever.
This longing shaped her into an adult who aches for steadiness but feared holding on too tightly — to friendships, to love, to anything that reminded her of the fragile bonds she once knew.
It shaped her in ways she wouldn’t fully understand until much later.
In writing stories, she saw fragments of her mother. But, after HerSpace, she began seeing pieces of herself in other women too. She realised her pain wasn’t just her’s; it lived in so many others. Her struggles became beads, woven into the bracelets of other women’s lives — each one a story, a pain, a strength — all connected in a circle of resilience and understanding.
With time, she found herself wanting to hear the story of that stranger — the man she called her father. Maybe he had his own story too. But throughout her childhood, she was never given the chance to listen.
She decided to reconcile with her father — to finally hear his side of the story.
She never had a direct conversation with him, but after long, tiring days at work, she would lean on her father when he visited. She would talk, and he would listen. In his silence, she felt his regret — the weight of the role he played. She knew the past was gone, beyond fixing, so she chose to mend their relationship for what remained.
HerSpace was shaping her, helping her let go. Hearing stories from other women made her heal and feel happier. They cried, laughed, and grew stronger together. Oftentimes, they joked about their traumas as if they were nothing — but deep down, each knew that, after a day of grieving, humour must fix the sadness, even if just for a moment. The community gradually became more than just a group of people — it became a family.
After ten years of working and reaching women in different communities, that’s how she got invited to give a TED Talk — to share their stories and the journey that led her there.
Zeba had her TED Talk tomorrow. She was trying to sleep when she checked her phone — it was already 3:00am. A mix of nervousness and excitement filled her as she thought about sharing her journey of self-love, mental health, and how she had spread it through her community space.
Deep in her mind, she wondered, “Do I deserve this chance?” She doubted herself.
Every night before going to bed, she would think about every little detail of her past — how everything she had been through had shaped her. But today was different — there was no sadness like usual, only a sense of pride, with just a sprinkle of nervousness, barely noticeable even to her.
It was 8:00am when her alarm rang. She woke up feeling sleepy and dizzy, but she had a big day ahead.
After getting ready and wearing her favourite pink Balochi dress, the fragrance of her favourite perfume filled her room.
At 11:00am, she arrived at the TED Talk.
She stepped up to the podium, her eyes scanning the diverse crowd in front of her. Her heart raced, and she could feel her hands trembling slightly, but she took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and put on her most confident smile. Though nervous, she refused to let it show too much. With a steady voice, she began to share the story of HerSpace — how it all started as a small idea, and how it grew into something much bigger than she ever imagined. She spoke openly about the struggles, the late nights, the moments of doubt, and the triumphs that kept her going. Her words were honest and heartfelt, drawing the audience into her journey, making them feel every high and low. By the end, it wasn’t just a speech — it was a piece of her life, shared with vulnerability and courage.
She ended her speech, “It’s not easy for anyone to let go and relearn — it wasn’t easy for me either. But today, as I stand here, I imagine my younger self beside me, smiling wide, her eyes full of hope. I step forward, making space for mistakes, knowing the world doesn’t stop here — and neither does healing. Every end is a beginning. This is not the end; it’s the beginning of another self-love journey, a new chapter in a new decade of my life.”
As she finished her speech, the crowd clapped loudly. In that moment, she saw herself again in the village — her younger self, happy and playing with the mud pots she used to make in her childhood.
She felt it deep within — she was finally healing, reaching the last stage of grief: acceptance. She was ready to guide others in their journey.