......

......Non-profit accountability
......The role of NGOs
......The right to health

These have been profound topics that I have been dealing with over the past week. It's amazing how talking about health and human rights gives me a perspective on life that I've never thought about.....especially under the conditions that I am in.

Black South African people have been oppressed in their own country so long that the fight is still fresh....the light is still on. It's amazing when I heard one woman argue against perceived pessimism.....She simply said that as a Black woman having fought in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and that the progress and freedoms that Madiba (Nelson Mandela) brought about are worth the having the hope that human rights will be reached. She said that she's not giving up the fight, that yes their Constitution has issues with implementation, but that's where your role as a citizen is needed......to make sure what is supposed to happen, happens, and she will keep fighting to see it through.

This emotion and passion summarized my purpose of hope and life.


I must also add that I had an Epiphany yesterday while watching a video on HIV/AIDS rights, and the right that an HIV positive mother has to protect her child from contracting the virus. As I watched the footage from 1998-2005, I thought about what I was doing around that time--school, traveling, hanging out with friends, occasional parties....I couldn't believe all this was going on--the marches, the arrest, the protests, the babies dying, the law suits, courtrooms, all this amongst the backdrop of singing, dancing, holding one another and smiling. That's when it hit me....I felt a stir in my soul that these were my people, our people. My brothers, sisters, cousins, grandparents. I felt an overwhelming sense of belonging and what responsibility and rights actually meant.

I get it, I got it.

Like the woman implied, we didn't come this far to simply get discouraged and give up.... and if that means more fighting then we will