SLIM
Today, the volunteer comittee sponsored the viewing of a 30 minute documentary, "SLIM," about children in Africa with AIDS.
I attended, and I am glad I did, despite the tears and heavy uncomfortable feeling it left me with. It was extremely moving. It scares me to think about how this huge population of people is in need of help (ie health education, anti-retroviral drugs) while in countries such as this one, people drive Hummers and carry thousand dollar handbags. Cellphones with video cameras, blackberry pagers, diamond rings, etc etc.....Of course, I'd be an asshole blind hypocrite if I said I didn't spend money on stuff that is not necessary. I am by NO MEANS a bling-bling brand name ho, but I do spend money on things for the sheer joy they bring me.
My issue is that I don't understand how a world like ours can exist while a world like the one in Africa simultaneously exists. How can some people have so little, and others so much? How is that fair?
What made the documentary extra profound is just seeing these children, so young, telling their stories. Seeing a child, in all of his or her innocence, suffering this way is just awful. They get treated badly by peers, teachers, and even family for having HIV. All of the children in the documentary were born with HIV.
The video defintely left most of us with a sense of obligation. A feeling of "what can I do to help?" As aspriring physicians, most students in this program already have motivation to help others, a sense of compassion, an inherent need to contribute to something meaningful. I know that I was not alone today in feeling the responsibility to try to remedy the injustice in this world.
It's things like this that make me count my blessings. I'm glad to be alive, glad to be healthy, well off, educated. Things like this make me forget about the unfortunate grade I got in whatever stupid class. Makes me forget about not getting into medical school last year, and just pushes me to work hard as hell to get in this year.
Thank you world, for everything.
2 comments:
*Starting to feel bad about having my Treo*
Solid post, Mari. I completely agree with you on how disappointing it is to know that our country basks in their own opulence while people around the world...hell, people in THIS COUNTRY...suffer. I remember once when I was watching E! Entertainment (strike one) and they mentioned that some celeb (I think it was Demi Moore) spends $40,000 a year on "designer water" to wash her hair. I almost threw my TV out the window when I heard that. But it just reminds me of the mindsets that we have in this nation about wealth and privilege.
Poor people exist because:
(1) privileged people are too self-centered to help others while they sit on their asses and waste money on cars, jewelry, homes, clothes, etc...
(2) The rich NEED poor people to stay rich. If everyone in this world had a collective ownership of the wealth and resources therein (which is TOTALLY possible, by the way), who then would be in the upper echelons? Rich people need poverty around so poor folks can provide the barameter by which rich people are measured.
(3) It's easy for people to become desensitized to things that do not or have not affected them personally. People aren't likely to be sensitive to victims of starvation unless they've been starved themselves (not the Nicole Richie/Mary Kate Olsen kind of starving. I mean that "there's - no - food - in - the - entire - region" type of starving). I think that's what annoys me about many celebs and affluent people. They live in some bubble; completely disconnected with reality.
I'd better stop before I turn this into a book. But you get the point...
Bravo marcy, i was thinking maybe we could start an organization and start volunteering at the um, fiu, and other sports events. then sign up and have them give us $60 bucks for every person that volunteers for the event and raise money. Send me the info to that thing you did for the UM Maryland game.
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