Change - starts within families

My life I would say, is complicated. Complicated in a sense that I have 3 sets of parents, half-brothers and sisters, step brothers and having grown up in three or four different family homes of my uncles in which I also refer to as my father and their children my brothers and sisters.
When people ask, who is your father or who is your mother – I pause and think, before I tell them, because calling one may be bring a different reaction – like oh I thought u were, this person’s child or this so family is one subject as much as I love, I don’t like to talk about much.
But situations and circumstances of such brings a lot of learning and strength and depends on how one deals with and overcomes such barriers to look at more positive outcomes in life.
While growing up and being part of a number of broken marriages, having to deal with step-mothers, step-aunties and change of doing things has made me personally be very sensitive in bringing up my children.
One I wish that they never go through is a broken home. But what defines a broken home – though I come from such a background, I wouldn’t say I come from a broken home, as even though such situations occurred, there was still some sort of unity, and loving parents who made sure we got the best in education and things in life despite of the many issues.
One thing that I am glad to have held on to, is my enthusiasm and enjoyment of going to school – I guess it was one place where you feel happy and more at home when all issues go around.
Now having my family of my own, and being through the teenage era of experimenting with things, such as alcohol, sex – you only wish that education in these areas in your younger life was much better.
I see a lot of my friends now going through problems relating to alcoholism. A lot of us, having children in our younger lives, and end up being separated from our other halfs.
My heart goes out to women who suffer and going through these.
Alcohol is a great problem in our society – in young lives , middle aged and older – One thing that is currently missing in this society is helplines , confidential lines , counseling that helps people to overcome these.
Along with this is the education that comes with it while in school – to do with mindsets, changing of attitudes with how to treat women and respect for each other.

With our society where such sensitive issues were taboo – we now find difficult trying to discuss these or bring these as part of education and even discussions within family groups as culture and tradition is still very strong.

I hope that the more we interact with people outside of our society and other developing countries and developed countries, we gain understanding on how people do things, how help and support can be given to people and how successful it has been, so that we can be able to break these barriers.
For women to speak out, to become empowered and to do something that will better themselves , their families and their livelihoods.
Communication and Technology is improving and more it improves it makes the world a more smaller place and allows more people to communicate together and be aware of what is happening not only within their communities but throughout the world and how we can use and be part of the change and thus improve ourselves and our communities.
I look forward to learning more from others in World Pulse to learn of the situations, that are common in our society, how they deal with it, and how we can relate and use the same to improve our situations and circumstances in our own societies to make the world a better place to live in – in harmony and happiness to start in our own families.