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March 4, 2009

CAMPUS

PANTHER POST

By Michael Conway

Post Contributor

“You’ve come a long way, Baby!” bragged the 1968 Philip Morris cigarette com- mercial. As sexist as that was, and is, it may have been an accurate statement for North American society, but it was not the reality reflect- ed in the photo documentary screened during the Women in Development Symposium at the Student Centre.

“Resilience and Dreams,” a slide show of black and white images documented _ trau- matic situations that are, still today, the scourge of women and children throughout the world. Horrendous _ condi- tions in the Soweto Town- ships, women dying of HIV/ Aids in Uganda, refugees in Afghanistan and Pakistan or young sex-trade workers in Guatemala, illustrated the “urgency of action required by the world community to end these deplorable condi- tions.

A stroll along the Student Centre thoroughfare evoked conflicting emotions ranging from despair to hope. Static photo displays depicted the horrors of disease in India, while others captured im- ages of angry child soldiers. Facts and figures are star- tling. Fully three quarters of child deaths occur in Africa

or South East Asia; world

conflicts result in thirty-nine million refugees; every twen- _ ty-two minutes someone is

U.P.E.1. International Development

Week an eye-opening display Atrocities around the globe opens eyes for all those who took part

killed by a land mine, and; child soldiers are forced into fighting to escape servitude and poverty. Mind-numbing photographs of twelve-year- old boys, armed to the teeth with automatic weapons, stare back at you through dead eyes, their childhood ripped from them and gone forever - another lost genera- tion!

Amongst this heartache and despair hope lives. It lives in dedicated women who are actively committed to doing what is necessary to foster change. It lives in young stu- dents like Lisa MacLeod who will go to Kenya in March as part of her program in inter- national. development and education. It lives in the or- ganization Farmers Helping Farmers, whose good works have been well documented by Island print and electron- ic media. It lives in young students who are attempting to educate others in the value of diversity, particularly as it pertains to life at UPEI, and it lives in grandmothers in Canada and Africa who are drawn together by their sim- ilarities in The Grandmoth- ers Campaign, as they seek to ease the pain and struggle for survival from HIV/Aids in Africa.

I overheard my professor

telling another student that the purpose of this assign- ment was to provide students would be difficult to walk through the Student Centre and not reflect on our privi-

leged place in the world. We are fortunate to be living the Canadian experience. Pro- tected, as we are, from the horrors that vast parts of the world endure on a daily basis, begs reflection. This

- reflection, however, should

be focused directly on third

world countries and the dai- ly trials they encounter in living their lives. I believe, as do others, that our privi- leged existence comes with the moral obligation to do what is required to improve the human condition. People intent on fulfilling that ob-

ligation were evident at the Student Centre. Their cour- age in tackling such a daunt- ing task is inspiring and their efforts are beacons of hope as they seek practical solu- tions to solving our world’s problems. We owe them our gratitude and support.