The Voice of Many
RESHMI
“It’s a hot an humi ay in Swat Valley, Pakistan
A young stuent boars the school bus since walking is no longer safe
She sits, chatting with her friens after a long ay of exams
A man jumps onto the bus an pulls out a gun
The last thing the girl remembers is the soun of three gunshots
BANG, BANG, BANG
Her name is Malala an she was fourteen years ol
Shot for no reason other than her esire to learn
We will FIGHT until girls on’t live with fear of attening school
We will FIGHT until eucation is a freeom, a right, an expectation for everyone”
This is the first stanza of a piece of slam poetry my frien an I wrote an performe at our school’s renition of TED Talks. Over lunch one ay, we iscovere we share a common passion—an insistence on equality in all forms, feminism in particular. We iscusse the ifficulty of combating social issues, but agree that spreaing awareness was one effective metho. This casual exchange evolve into a project involving weeks of collaboration. We realize that together we coul make a far greater impact than we ever coul have iniviually, so we compose a ten-minute poem aime at inspiring people to consier important issues. We began by rafting stanzas, simultaneously eiting one another’s writing, an later progresse to memorization, practicing together until our alternating lines flowe an phrases spoken together were completely synchronize. The performance was both memorable an successful, but more importantly, this collaboration motivate us to move forwar to establish the Equality Club at our school. Sophomore year, our club volunteere with organizations promoting gener equality, the highlight of the year helping at a marathon for recovering abuse victims. Junior year, we met with our hea of school to convey our goals, outline plans an gain support for the coming year, in which we hel funraisers for refugees while eucating stuents. This year we are collaborating with the Juicial Committee to reuce the escalating use of racial slurs at school stemming from a lack of awareness within the stuent boy. From this experience, I learne that it is possible to reach so many more people when working together rather than apart. It also taught me that the most crucial aspect of collaborating is believing in the same cause; the etails will come as long as there is a share passion.
Reshmi’s essay highlights how combining forces with others can help you achieve your goals. At Hopkins, stuents take avantage of interisciplinary stuy to learn from ifferent perspectives an buil connections between topics. Similar to how Reshmi collaborate with a fellow stuent to evelop an Equality Club, our stuents come together each ay to combine ieas an resources to make progress. This essay clearly shows us how the writer intens to collaborate with her peers to inspire change, both in an outsie of the classroom.
