heckyeatumblr#4.

http://tumblr.com/xsx1xkgzm5

4. When I was younger...

Dear 14 year old Chloe,

Happy Birthday. Have a wonderful day. See you in six years, where I would like to tell you that you will be living in an exotic land, chasing dreams with a gorgeous boy holding your hand, succeeding academically, loving your life and grabbing every single chance with (a little bit too much) intense devotion to being happy. 

You have no idea how much more complicated life will get. Don’t feel patronised, no one expects you to understand. In fact, you should embrace the fact that you don’t, and probably can’t. Life is huge. You are huge.  Continue. So much can happen. So much will happen. I can’t tell you how best to deal with it and you wouldn’t listen anyway. There are no messages you can leave yourself that will make a remote difference to how you will deal with a situation or emotion that will make a blind bit of difference to any of it. Just feel what you feel when you feel it and never be ashamed.

You will never truly or fully appreciate how beautiful anything is until it’s over or gone. But try. Don’t get annoyed with yourself when you fail: it’s ok to be sad sometimes. No one ‘expects’ anything else.

There will always be idiots in your life. There will always be idiots in the world: you can’t expect to get on with everyone and you can’t expect everyone to get along with you. It is hard, and it is upsetting. Know that they don’t have to have a huge impact on how you regard yourself. You have family and you have friends who love you the way they are. And if sometimes you feel otherwise, maybe sometimes you feel alone, just hang on. Hang on and remember: you have a lifetime’s worth of friends out there. So many people will pass in and out of your life, and you always have the opportunity to grab onto the ones who you feel will enrich it. And there will be plenty.

Life carries on after school. Don’t tell anyone I said this but: (it’s not such a big deal.). Life gets bigger. I think life is getting better. Every birthday I have had so far, I think to myself: “That was the best year of my life.”.

Know that your motivation gives you the fuel you need to follow your ideas, intentions and dreams across through to the next ones: and these journeys are made by you. You can chose to let who shares it with you in most respects. You chose the paths you take. You are making this. Credit yourself.

That’s a bit of a joke coming from me.

You will say ‘I love you’ to five different men by the age of 20. By the age of 20, you will only really be sure about one of them, and that might just be because of a chord you just heard a few hours ago....No, this doesn’t get easier. Yes, it does get better.

You owe your family everything. Get to know your grandparents. Get to know your uncle. Immerse yourself in your family. Let them know what they mean to you: never let this pass them by.

By the end of this year, you will have a boyfriend. So stop worrying. (Because we both know that that's all you're really worried about.)

Love you,

20 year old Chloe x

NB this may have been recycled from when I wrote it a few years ago...

heckyeatumblr#1.

http://tumblr.com/xsx1xkgzm5


1. Write about your favourite charity and why you support it.


I wish I knew more about the world and I could justify my support even better.


I remember I first found out about Amnesty International when I was in Year 8. This was before they had a MAJOR change to their campaigning tactic: we got a letter in the post just addressed to 'The Occupier' and I asked Mum if I could open it ("YAY MAIL!" and she said "Yes if you like but it might not be very nice.". Indeed, the letter was from AI, and featured a story of a young man from South America who had been detained and tortured for something or other (hey, this was 10 years ago). Whilst in prison, the man had been asked to confess to the crime, and for each time he denied, he had to attempt to balance a pen on its tip; each time the pen fell, it was forced into his urethra. The story also included pictures of the man's corpse after 'police' had gouged out his eyeballs. 


Obviously, as a 12 year old, this was pretty freaky shit (still is). I took the leaflet into school to show my friends. 'Charity Week' was approaching, which was a week of fund-raisers and activities in the summer which culminated in a fair on the Friday, with games and cakes etc. Each year group selected a charity to support and send their money to. So the week before, there were year assemblies where anyone who had a charity to propose could stand up and persuade everyone vote for their charity of choice. 


As a timid and paranoid 12 year old, niggled by many many self image issues, it was a pretty big deal that I stood up and told 200 people about a man who had to put a pen in his penis and who got his eyes gouged out. 


Unfortunately, what AI hadn't made clear in their leaflet was how money could actually resolve these issues, and so when someone asked how their money would be spent, I honestly couldn't answer...all I knew was that this was horrible behaviour and it had to be stopped. Anyway, I didn't 'win' the charity proposals (some of the other girls in the year knew someone with access to a Pudsey Bear outfit, and they had also started to developed breasts: I had no chance.).


As I grew up, I guess I forgot about the charity (overshadowed by pop music, then grunge music, skateboarders and under age drinking I suppose). Until I got to uni, where I met my beautiful flatmate Anna (maybe I'll dedicate a post to just her soon...). She was an avid supporter of the organisation and set away starting up her own UEA group pretty quick after we all started. I got involved thereafter, and have been attempting to regularly letter-write since. AI had substantially changed their campaigning tactics since 2000, and their promo materials no longer consisted of corpses and horror stories, but of strong people desperate for change, and making moves to make the change on their own, just asking for a bigger voice.


AI acts to empower people who are falling victim of human rights abuses. Often, they focus on small, individual cases. A prisoner of conscience who suddenly receives a huge influx of international mail is often treated with a lot more respect by the prison guards. In addition, letters to government officials regarding this prisoner let them know: The world is watching. If not that, then it can just make them aware of an injustice that they were genuinely unaware of. AI often acts on behalf of small NGOs who are suffering at the hands of suppressive regimes and struggling to have their voice heard. AI can also tackle HR injustices head on, by lobbying governments to change policies which can have unintentional/ accidental/ intentional affects on specific groups of people and their rights.


AI is an international organisation campaigning for human rights. I NOW KNOW! You can support them with donations which go towards campaigns (public awareness, government pressure, local support) which support the fight against human rights injustices all over the world. You can also support them by buying yourself a HUGE pile of stamps, logging onto their site and writing as many letters as you can to either a) a member of government or b) a prisoner of conscience. 


 I support AI because it promotes education (maybe somewhat indirectly) about international affairs. I support AI because it's effective. I support AI because it's inspiring that it's effective. I support AI because it's cool to know what's going on in my world, and to know that I can influence it.

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/


thanks to samsanwam x