Showing posts with label Social Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Media. Show all posts
I wrote this on the 5th December 2015 during the UNICEF Uganda Media Tour
It's a humid Saturday morning when we arrive at Bondo Health center in our air-conditioned land rovers to have a meeting with health workers, teenage mothers and community members. I enter the stuffy metal tin roofed meeting room a little late, and find everyone settled on concrete benches. All eyes are on a young pregnant woman in the corner, I realise as the discussion is going on that she is not really a full grown adult woman, she is a pregnant teenage girl. Her hands are shaking she can barely get a word out of her mouth. Her eyes keep darting around the room looking for help. Anyone would feel nervous too, imagine sitting in a room full of strangers while they ask you, "How could you allow yourself to get pregnant?" "Will you be returning to school once you've had the baby?" It must be too overwhelming for a young girl like her, I doubt she ever considered the consequences of her pregnancy. We continue to ask our questions as though we understand (with our NGO jargon) what it means to be a girl like her. We ask our questions as though opportunities in this area are growing and falling off trees like unwanted over-ripe mangoes. At first she refuses to answer the questions and others decide to answer for her, They say "Her father died, Her mother went mad, there is nobody to guide her....." Finally my boss asks, " What happened to the man who made her pregnant?" There is some mumbling among the participants which dies down immediately and then the question is forgotten, and silence returns. Again my boss insists, "What happened to the man who made her pregnant?" To which there is silence until one brave middle-aged man stands up and says, "You see if she lived closer to me I would have advised her like a daughter to stay away from men, but the children of these days they are different. What can we do?" He shrugs his shoulders and sits down. He seems proud of himself thinking he has said what the NGOs want him to say. But they have still failed to answer the question. This man who impregnated her has quite simply and quickly been absolved of all responsibility. By now the young girl has already made her way to the back the room. Now unrecognizable among the crowd, she can relax and let them talk as though she isn't there. Eventually my boss asks another question, "What would the women in this community like to see happen so that girls are better protected from defilement?" He kindly gestures towards the women in the room as he talks to the translator. First there is silence, except for the children playing outside. My boss asks his question again and some smiles appear on the women's faces. Can you imagine a man actually ignoring what the men have said and now seeking their opinion? Then finally one among many is brave enough to stand up and say, "Here we have no voice. In our community it is the men who make all the decisions. Even if it is our hardwork that brings in the income, it makes no difference, for it is the men who decide how to spend the money, some days you can even fight with your husband to pay school fees for your children." #Arua #InvestInUGchildren
It's a humid Saturday morning when we arrive at Bondo Health center in our air-conditioned land rovers to have a meeting with health workers, teenage mothers and community members. I enter the stuffy metal tin roofed meeting room a little late, and find everyone settled on concrete benches. All eyes are on a young pregnant woman in the corner, I realise as the discussion is going on that she is not really a full grown adult woman, she is a pregnant teenage girl. Her hands are shaking she can barely get a word out of her mouth. Her eyes keep darting around the room looking for help. Anyone would feel nervous too, imagine sitting in a room full of strangers while they ask you, "How could you allow yourself to get pregnant?" "Will you be returning to school once you've had the baby?" It must be too overwhelming for a young girl like her, I doubt she ever considered the consequences of her pregnancy. We continue to ask our questions as though we understand (with our NGO jargon) what it means to be a girl like her. We ask our questions as though opportunities in this area are growing and falling off trees like unwanted over-ripe mangoes. At first she refuses to answer the questions and others decide to answer for her, They say "Her father died, Her mother went mad, there is nobody to guide her....." Finally my boss asks, " What happened to the man who made her pregnant?" There is some mumbling among the participants which dies down immediately and then the question is forgotten, and silence returns. Again my boss insists, "What happened to the man who made her pregnant?" To which there is silence until one brave middle-aged man stands up and says, "You see if she lived closer to me I would have advised her like a daughter to stay away from men, but the children of these days they are different. What can we do?" He shrugs his shoulders and sits down. He seems proud of himself thinking he has said what the NGOs want him to say. But they have still failed to answer the question. This man who impregnated her has quite simply and quickly been absolved of all responsibility. By now the young girl has already made her way to the back the room. Now unrecognizable among the crowd, she can relax and let them talk as though she isn't there. Eventually my boss asks another question, "What would the women in this community like to see happen so that girls are better protected from defilement?" He kindly gestures towards the women in the room as he talks to the translator. First there is silence, except for the children playing outside. My boss asks his question again and some smiles appear on the women's faces. Can you imagine a man actually ignoring what the men have said and now seeking their opinion? Then finally one among many is brave enough to stand up and say, "Here we have no voice. In our community it is the men who make all the decisions. Even if it is our hardwork that brings in the income, it makes no difference, for it is the men who decide how to spend the money, some days you can even fight with your husband to pay school fees for your children." #Arua #InvestInUGchildren
I want you to imagine a person who has everything that you are currently working towards in your life. Imagine that they have the dream house, the dream relationship, the dream job, the dream friends, the dream life and a perfect personal brand and reputation. Picture the kind of person that has over 5000 friends on Facebook and each time they post a simple selfie, within an hour they get over 300 likes and 100 comments.
Visualize a person who is always dressed impeccably, and speaks so eloquently, even when caught off guard in an office meeting. They are always seen at the hippest events, and let’s not forget to add the fact that they have a feature column in the national newspaper to share their latest escapades. Imagine this person is always posting pictures of themselves and ‘bae’ on some paradise island trip, while you are busy sunbathing at home in your garden reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s book ‘ Eat Pray Love’.They have told people that “bae” is amazing and fulfills all their dreams and expectations, so poor ‘bae’ joins the perfectionist bandwagon by focusing on making the kind of money that maintains their lifestyle. ‘Bae’ has no time to post perfect selfies. You are not jealous of this person, rather you admire their tenacity to reach their goals and really succeed life.
Now let’s add a little twist to the story. Imagine
discovering that the person is obsessed with your life. This person would like to know every detail of
your life, from the house you live in, to the friends you have, to the person
that you are dating. Immediately upon befriending them online, this person went
and studied every Facebook post you’d ever made and every tweet you’d sent out. When you realized this, you decided to alter your name on Instagram,
because you were tired of the online trolling. All this time, you were quite
content to share your simple life with your 150 Facebook friends, until this
person, started making sly comments about how boring your life was. Eventually, after while you find yourself
questioning your mundane existence, and you stopped posting your life events
and stuck to the regular bible and inspirational quotes. One day after this person had thrown a full blown public
tantrum in my face because I’d subtly blocked them on Facebook , I found some time
to reflect on the way home about the kind life that would create such behavior.
I wonder whether some Social Media Stars unknowingly set a claustrophobic trap
for themselves by the life they create online.
They set the bar high and make it impossible for themselves to appear human and flawed. I am a picture of flaws so I am not surprised when people point them out. My experience in this particular case was that, anyone who didn’t bow in adoration was bullied and manipulated to help the star maintain their status and reputation. Although it makes me giggle, one has to admit it’s hard work taking the perfect selfie. You have to think of the background, the prefect angle for your face, all the while balancing the phone at the right height so that you can catch the right light! I feel sorry that some social media stars have made everyone believe they don’t make mistakes. That bad days don’t happen and, that acne breakouts consider their skin an inhabitable foreign planet. We have all been made authors and artists because of the way we can narrate our lives on social media. I believe that we all have a right to share the good, the bad and the ugly of our story as we choose. Is it too much to ask that anyone who wishes to part take in any social media discussion try and use some social media etiquette too?
Originally Published on : Memoirs of a Kangaroo in the Sun
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