VOF Week 2: (Out and Loud)

People tend to say that I am young, ambitious and that I will achieve something in my life. But what do they expect for me? Get my university degree, find a job, get married, have children, take care of the household and live happily ever after.
Well that is not exactly my dream. I do want a College degree and Masters and a PhD. I also want to build family at some point of my life. But right now I want to travel and see the world. I want to be part of new cultures and see how people live. I want to experience everything: food, traditions, education, love… And there comes the problem.
Luckily, I do get to travel a lot and whenever I come back home I am full of inspiration and ideas and I want to talk to people and share my experiences and encourage them to travel, to meet new people and to experience the unknown. I want them not to throw garbage on the street and to build a youth center. I want them to speak out and say what they really think. I want no homeless dogs on the streets.
And what I usually get is people that are not open-minded, people that are not ready for change, people that think that my ideas are nonsense. They always tell me “Your brain has been washed”, or “You should stay home and find yourself a decent man”, or “You don’t belong here.” And then I get hurt and I stop talking and I don’t know how to react and what to do. Am I different because I want something better? Why I cannot belong to my homeland because I don’t want to get married and have children? Who am actually I?
And when I finally found out the opportunity for VOF I decided to join, because it is certainly one of the places where I can express all my thoughts and feelings. I can cry if I want to cry and I can laugh if I want to laugh. No one judges me and no one forbids me to do what I really enjoy doing.
Today I am writing, but tomorrow I will be speaking out and loud and convince everyone that every single being deserves something better. I will say with no fear that we need to change first ourselves and then the others if we want a brighter future. Finally, I will not be afraid to be the voice of the change and the woman that is ready to lead, because I want to be the leader of the new open-minded and free generation.