Quote of the Day
“Find your voice! And raise your voice! Let yours be a voice for freedom!”
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf delivered these words in her Nobel Peace Prize lecture in Oslo in December 2011. She was speaking particularly to women whose rights and voices had too often been pushed aside.
Finding your voice sounds simple.
Using it can be much harder.
What happens when speaking may cost you a friendship, a job, acceptance in your family or safety in your community?
What happens when everybody around you knows something is wrong, but silence has become the easier choice?
A woman experiencing abuse may know exactly what is happening to her and still be afraid to tell anyone.
A worker may see wrongdoing and wonder whether reporting it will leave them unemployed.
A young person may disagree with something happening in the community but believe that age means they should keep quiet.
Sometimes silence is fear.
Sometimes it is exhaustion.
Sometimes people have spoken before and nobody listened.
That is why Sirleaf’s words should not become another slogan telling people simply to “speak up.”
If we want people to find their voices, we also have a responsibility to create places where those voices can be heard without punishment.
Speaking matters.
Listening does too.
And perhaps freedom needs both.
Source: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf — Nobel Peace Prize lecture
Did You Know?
Albinism is not contagious. It is an inherited genetic condition.
That sentence should be unnecessary.
Unfortunately, it isn’t.
The United Nations Human Rights Office describes albinism as a rare, non-contagious, genetically inherited condition found throughout the world, regardless of ethnicity or gender. It commonly affects pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes and can cause serious visual impairment and vulnerability to sun exposure.
In sub-Saharan Africa, estimates cited by the UN range from about one person in 5,000 to one in 15,000, although prevalence varies considerably between populations.
The medical facts are straightforward.
The myths surrounding them can be deadly.
The United Nations reports hundreds of attacks and killings of people with albinism across countries in sub-Saharan Africa, linked in part to dangerous beliefs about witchcraft and supposed powers attached to their bodies.
But discrimination does not always arrive as physical violence.
It can be the child mocked at school because of their appearance.
The pupil who cannot see the blackboard properly but is assumed to be unintelligent.
The person denied an opportunity because somebody believes a superstition instead of understanding a genetic condition.
There is also a serious health issue. The International Agency for Research on Cancer says people with albinism in sub-Saharan Africa face particularly high risks of skin cancer because of intense ultraviolet exposure and limited access to sun protection and medical care.
Sometimes prejudice survives because nobody stops to ask whether the story everybody repeats is actually true.
A person’s skin is not a superstition.
And difference is not evidence that someone is less human.
Sources: UN Human Rights — About albinism · United Nations — Albinism and Human Rights · International Agency for Research on Cancer
For discussion: What beliefs about people in our own communities have we inherited without ever stopping to ask whether they are true?
Leave a comment