This month, we began a new class focusing on the United Nation’s eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). For our first week of class, we focused on the first two goals:
1. Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty
2. Achieve universal primary education
We grouped these together under the theme of ACCESS and looked at the world through this lens on local, national and international levels.
My Milestone this week was to write a poem about MDG #2 and create an illustration to go along with it. Below are my collage and poem.
The Lessons of Fate
Does Fate deal cards fairly?
Does she shuffle them until they’re jumbled and she forgets where she began?
There are cards like tattoos,
inked into us,
through our skin,
deep into our souls.
There are cards like chocolate,
indulgences,
some filled with luxurious ignorance,
others stuffed with extravagant existences.
There are cards like thorns,
piercing into our sides,
provoking blood to rush out,
determined to stay wedged in,
never crying out for pause.
There are cards we ache to have,
some gluttonously,
some by bare necessity,
some only wishing on a star,
some fighting to the death.
There are cards some take for granted,
that for others are unimaginable dreams,
wild fantasies.
What could be if the hand was dealt differently?
Of everything this world offers to us,
should the chance to learn be left to chance?
Should so many men and women be left defenseless,
unable to read and write?
Should girls be kept out of schools because they don’t need to know as much as boys do?
1951 called, they want their dated gender roles back.
Return the call.
Express mail them back.
We have no time for fence-makers.
There is an urgency to get on track,
to build,
to inspire,
to allow the potential inside of every person to come forth.
This assignment challenged me in a bigger way than just figuring out how to write another poem. It pushed me to take a long, hard look at the world outside my own and see the tragedy that dominates the lives of so many and some days that was really hard to talk and think about.
Through this assignment, I was stretched out as more than a student, but as a human being that has responsibilities to others to give back and help where I can. I am grateful for this experience because I don’t deserve to or want to live in a world like this and not know of the pain of others.
Out of all the work I have done so far at GCE, this class has been my favorite so far, even though it’s just been a week, because of the knowledge it gives.